Consumer rights

MassiveJim · 10 Oct 2019 at 17:31

Where do we stand with the following situation.
We bought a sofa from Harveys for £1800 (3 power recliner seats with a media tray thing with cupholders built in, and some kind of 5 year care package) delivery was 12 weeks. When it arrived it has some kind of fault, the sofa is modular and the left hand module has a bent frame I think.
Delivery guys took pictures and contacted customer support, and passed the phone to me I was told they would call me back, but they didn't.
i called the store we bought it from and spoke to the manager (who happens to be the guy that sold us the sofa in the first place), he placed an order for a replacement unit, but we had to wait another 12 weeks for delivery, we are now around 7 weeks in to that wait.

In that time it has become apparent that although the new sofa may not be faulty as this one is, it is not a quality sofa (certainly not £1800 quality anyway).
The modules don't really locked together properly and they rock about quite a lot when reclined, the foot rests have also started to squeak as well. It just isn't what is advertised in the store, that one was solid and no movement like this one has.
So my partner and I finally decided last night to just cancel the order, because there is no point waiting for another sofa to arrive then rejecting it. then having to wait even longer for another sofa to arrive and potentially being sofa-less in the mean time.

So we called in to the store today and the manager told us that because a replacement has been ordered we had to go through customer services now, he called them for us and explained the situation and then passed the phone to me.
Cust services rep was a little bit arrogant and not really helpful, our options (according to him) are now
1 - wait for delivery and then cancel with a 20% fee
2 - wait for delivery and if it is faulty then an engineer visit has to be organised and agree the fault before sofa could be rejected)
I asked him how is it then that this fault was recorded by the delivery guys, pictures taken on a smart device they had with them, and both they and I spoke with customer services at point of delivery.
He didn't really give me a straight answer.

after going around in circles for a little while he offered us the option of swapping our order to a different sofa from them as a good will gesture, but the sofa we want now is a la-z-boy which are exclusive to SCS in UK.

The cust service rep did spout a lot of **** to be fair, telling me things like I should have checked in store how the sofa modules fixed together before buying etc.
In contract the manager of the store couldn't be more helpful and disagreed with quite a bit of what the sales rep told him. Also mentioned the furniture ombudsman that we could go through if we didn't get what we wanted.
The other issue is going to be waiting for another 5 weeks for this sofa to arrive then adding another 6 on top for delivery from SCS.
We don't have space to store an additional sofa so we can't risk having 2 sofas here at the same time.

Now bearing in mind that they have only had a 10% deposit from us I don't know how they expect they can take the 20% ?
But my main question is, do I have to accept the new sofa if the quality is the same as this one. (apart from the obvious fault that is), and can it be rejected on delivery ?

Lol999 · 10 Oct 2019 at 17:36

Regarding the ombudsman my mum called them in to deal with DFS. He ripped them a new one and mum got her money back. Call them.

NoobCannon · 10 Oct 2019 at 17:36

Is it a corner sofa?

Threepwood · 10 Oct 2019 at 18:01

Tell the manager that customer services are poor and you don't want to deal with them, and that you would like him to do it. He is the manager after all, and you bought from him, not customer services.

robj20 · 10 Oct 2019 at 18:23

We got ours recently from Sofology and while it's fine it doesn't feel of high quality or anything. Certainly something you'd expect to change every few years.
Was gutted to see that Saxon only make old sofas for pensioners it seems there quality seems the best and they are 5 minutes down the road.

MassiveJim · 10 Oct 2019 at 19:53

NoobCannon said:
Is it a corner sofa?

It can be ordered in a corner config, but ours isn't a corner, does that make me a wannabe chav??

Threepwood said:
Tell the manager that customer services are poor and you don't want to deal with them, and that you would like him to do it. He is the manager after all, and you bought from him, not customer services.

Unfortunately it is out of his hands, but he is going to talk to his manager who doesn't work in customer service to see if there is anything he can do to help us.

Threepwood · 10 Oct 2019 at 20:06

MassiveJim said:
Unfortunately it is out of his hands, but he is going to talk to his manager who doesn't work in customer service to see if there is anything he can do to help us.

They are having you on then, he is the manager of the shop! If the manager can't do anything then what is the point of his position?

Did you pay the 10% by cash or card? I presume you entered a credit contract?

MassiveJim · 10 Oct 2019 at 21:05

Threepwood said:
They are having you on then, he is the manager of the shop! If the manager can't do anything then what is the point of his position?

Did you pay the 10% by cash or card? I presume you entered a credit contract?

Credit is handled by a 3rd party.
He is the store manager ie. Sales, customer service is another department I guess

fezster · 10 Oct 2019 at 21:17

Playing devil's advocate a little, but you have ordered a sofa which you say was absolutely fine in store. You've been unlucky in that the one delivered was damaged, but they are letting you continue to use it until a replacement arrives. The damaged one you have seems to be of inferior quality to the one in store, but it is crucially NOT the one you will be keeping.

So why not wait until the replacement arrives and then if the quality is not acceptable, raise it at that point? Which is basically the option they have given you. It seems entirely reasonable to wait and see what it is like.

If you've changed your mind on the sofa for some other reason, then the offer of a different sofa and / or 20% fee doesn't seem too unreasonable either.

MassiveJim · 10 Oct 2019 at 23:00

fezster said:
Playing devil's advocate a little, but you have ordered a sofa which you say was absolutely fine in store. You've been unlucky in that the one delivered was damaged, but they are letting you continue to use it until a replacement arrives. The damaged one you have seems to be of inferior quality to the one in store, but it is crucially NOT the one you will be keeping.

So why not wait until the replacement arrives and then if the quality is not acceptable, raise it at that point? Which is basically the option they have given you. It seems entirely reasonable to wait and see what it is like.

If you've changed your mind on the sofa for some other reason, then the offer of a different sofa and / or 20% fee doesn't seem too unreasonable either.

That was my mindset originally. But as time has gone on and this sofa being only 7 weeks old has started to develop creaks and wobbles etc. We can see that despite the faults with it the rest of the sofa has poor build quality. And really can't see a replacement being any different given the way the sofa is designed.

The modules aren't bolted together rather they just a pin system where the pins from one module just slot into the module next to it which allows each module to rock about independently from the rest until the play on the slot runs out then the module next to it starts to move with it.
It feels really rickety and had I known then what I know now this sofa would never have been ordered.

There are holes in each frame that line up that I can put a bolt through, but there media tray doesn't have a frame it's just a wooden box covered in fabric so to achieve the same thing I will need to drill and screw into it, which will undoubtedly void any warranty.

Also the recline action has gotten less smooth on the faulty module and the other end module during the time we have had it. So if the build quality is already showing weaknesses after a few weeks what am I to expect in a few years, I've spent this much to have a quality sofa that will last, this thing won't last 3 years.

Rroff · 10 Oct 2019 at 23:05

Threepwood said:
They are having you on then, he is the manager of the shop! If the manager can't do anything then what is the point of his position?

These days retail managers are increasingly just working from a script and a standardised way of running a branch (along with wage suppression) with less and less opportunity to do things your own way and increase your salary with experience, etc. within the same organisation.

Dirk Diggler · 10 Oct 2019 at 23:11

MassiveJim said:
But as time has gone on and this sofa being only 7 weeks old has started to develop creaks and wobbles etc.

Just how massive are you, Jim?

norm · 13 Oct 2019 at 12:26

I haven't shared this before but on the topic of sofas not as described I bought this Florence sofa bed from Sofology back in January of this year when it arrived after a few days I thought it didn't feel as comfortable as the one in the one in the store, I'd read about other people's experiences online with them supplying inferior quality foam in the cushions compared to the shop model. Well lo and behold when I unzipped the main seat cushion on mine compared to the display model I found this ...

I promptly email them and rejected it formally under the Consumer Rights Act, they contacted me the next day and arranged to collect it free of charge and gave me a full refund, which I was surprised at as I was fully expecting a battle on my hands but clearly the evidence was damning enough.