Missouri furniture company ordered to pay back over 1,400 consumers

The Better Business Bureau says the owners of Rough Country Rustic Furniture of Mountain Grove, Mo., have been ordered to pay back 1,422 customers who filed complaints with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.

The distributors of hand-crafted gun concealment furniture will have to pay nearly $1.2 million dollars.

The company is owned by Joseph and Ashley Ross.

Stephanie Garland of the Better Business Bureau, says residents of Halfway, Carthage, Eldorado Springs, Lamar, Neosho and Webb City have been some of the 1,400 victims.

In July 2018, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit say the business violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. The state said Rough Country Rustic Furniture used “deceptive and unfair business practices” and took payment for furniture, but either didn’t provide the products to consumers, or provided defective products.

The business closed in July of 2018, and filed for bankruptcy later that same year.

After Rough Country Rustic Furniture closed in 2018, at which time it filed for bankruptcy. After that, Garland says Joseph Ross opened a new business the next year in that same building, called Farmhouse Store Company.