Faulty sofa from furniture village.

MrsBeeman

Hi PollyOnAMission, it shouldn't matter if you haven't got the original receipt as they will have the order on their computer so they should find it by your name and address. I would call them up and ask them about the leather or look for the spec/brochure if the range is still available.

As for me, I've been on to Trading Standards (Citizens Advice Bureau) and I'm pleased to say that FV has offered me a replacement 3-seater Dante (which is the 100% leather equivalent). I've got to wait for the stock to come in so I can't count my chickens yet but definitely insist and persist with your claim.

I hope JoandAndy get a similiar result soon. I must also thank Andy2011 from Chesterfield Sofas who was really helpful with advice on leather and answered all my questions.

Keep up the good work!

joandandy

Hi All.

RESULT!!!! After writing to the Manager at MK furniture village, he initially replied stating that the decision of a refund would not alter and that he would not exchange the scala for a Dante.
Hubby spoke to the Manager who then agreed to exchange the sofa so long as we made a 50% contribution towards the balance of the costs (£250). We agreed and the new suite is on order.
V pleased with the outcome and grateful to Steve at Furniture Village who has been pretty helpful.:j

malchish

Hi,
After my last post I have been getting countless private messages from people who ask for help re. their faulty suites.
I would rather answer through the post here, because I can never be sure how I can send documentation to someone who could well turn out to be a Furniture Village sleuth, just in case.

1) First of all - bicast is not leather according to British Leather Standard. (in the US bycast, or bicast, can be advertised as leather). If you were sold bycast as leather, you have been deceived.
2)Where do you get the proof that fV sold bycast advertised as leather? The proof has been supplied to Trading Standards during our case, they must have it, they made a ruling. When you go to small claims court, ask the judge to request the materials from Trading Standards.
Even simpler, one of the posters who still keeps his leaflet re. "durable coated leather" could post the scanned copy here.
3) If you are offered half of the price for the rubbish that you bought - should you agree?
I do not know, I did not, I was furious and did not want to keep anything. But if you do - and if you can use the stuff - you could save yourself some headache.
4) I would advise that every deceived customer goes to small claims court - FV are very unlikely to contest, because the court would find out the whole scale of deception. You have nothing to lose.
5) Thickness of coating does matter, because such coating should not exceed 1/3 of the thickness of the final material.
6) Bycast is NOT SPLIT LEATHER, it is PARTICLES GLUED TOGETHER. Whatever the poster who claims to be "leather expert" posted here, I have seen my bycast under a mycroscope, and have seen the glued particles by my own naked eye. After this saga we do now know far more about leather than some "leather experts".
7)Try to make all the communications in writing with FV. Record all the telephone conversations onto your mobile phone.
8) Under Freedom of inf. you can ask FV if they had a trading standards ruling against them in 2009. Let's see what they respond. Their reply you can bring to the court.
9) Please do not expect me to supply you with my own documentation that contains my personal details unless you provide your full name, address and the copy of the small claims court claim that you are already claiming - then I could be prepared to help you in court.
We do not know who each poster is, and, as you can imagine, after my fight FV had to give so many refunds, they may be well very interested to find out what exactly I have.
10) Finally, if you want a full refund, you can cut a piece of the bicast, pay the expert for the expertise test (look at leather institure website) and this piece will be tested as not leather.
Then you claim from FV your refund plus the cost of the test.
Since your claim will be about not as described rather than faulty, it does not matter that your sofa will be missing a little square of the material - used items are used items, they do not have to be pristine and to have no holes in them.
If you are not prepared to risk (to cut a piece of evidence out of your sofa, to pay to the experts, to request the leaflets relating to the time when your item was advertised by FV, to print our british leather standards) to get your refund, then would you expect that all this work will be done by someone else for you (it is a lot of work!).? But if you do this, you will win I am sure - probably well before the court hearing. Many people have already claimed and received their compensation without resorting to courts.

judyb

6) Bycast is NOT SPLIT LEATHER, it is PARTICLES GLUED TOGETHER. Whatever the poster who claims to be "leather expert" posted here, I have seen my bycast under a mycroscope, and have seen the glued particles by my own naked eye. After this saga we do now know far more about leather than some "leather experts".

Bicast leather is made from split leather and as I teach leather identification I am constantly looking at it under the microscope. Particles glued together is used as a backing for Bonded Leather which is another type of false description. The backing of Bicast will look like particles because the fibres on a split leather are very loose compared to that of top grain leather.

Leather experts exist to help in cases like this and we could have written a simple report which would have cleared up the whole matter in no time. We have won many court cases on behalf of people who have been mis sold leather.
Quite happy to write reports for anyone that needs one which will include photos and the relevant British standards which we areveryfamiliar with.

Hope this helps
Judyb
Leather Consultant

malchish

Bycast sold to us by FV was not split leather.
The "leather expert" may refer to some other form of bycast - but a split of leather with plastic on top would be rather called coated leather.
The thickness of FV bycast was approx 0.5 mm, including the plastic, which was about 3/4 of the thickness. It was not more than leather dust glued to the plastic. There can be no split leather layer as thin as 0.1mm, it is ridiculous.
If you are that experienced, why did FV get away with selling non-leather as leather for several years, and nobody spotted this, until our ordeal? Where have you been with your expertise all that time, dear experts?
Any FV customers can cut a piece out of their failing furniture cover and send to leather technology centre or to leather repairers - they can give their independent report.
:rotfl: The bottom line is: selling non-leather (by British leather standard) as leather and for leather prices is the same kind of offence as selling yellow metal as gold for the price of gold. :rotfl:

judyb

This is where people get very confused because retailers put names to leather that are technically incorrect. Coated leather generally refers to a top grain leather that has been buffed corrected and pigment coated. Because this layer is sometimes a polyurethane coating this is mistaken for the type of coating they use in Bicast.
If you were sold something that thin then it was not even Bicast leather but more likely to be Bonded leather which is made from shavings of leather ground up and bonded to a mesh to form a backing which is then given a plastic coating.
We are not here to police what shops are selling but help consumers in many cases where they have been falsely sold leather - it is down to trading standards and the courts to prosecute and we have been involved in many successful cases. Until there was a standard for what could be sold as leather and what could not there was no ruling but after test cases the standard has now been introduced. Work continues to be done to protect the unsuspecting consumer and we are trying to raise awareness. The next move is to try to ban the use of the word leather in conjunction with anything that is not - this means that Bicast leather, Bonded leather and Faux leather could not be sold as such.

Most leather repairers do not have the expertise to accurately testify whether you have leather or not and their reports are unlikely to be accepted by the courts. The BLC, Leatherwise or ourselves all have the technology and accreditation to produce reports that will be acceptable in a court case.
Hope this helps
Judyb
Leather Care Consultant

cashisking1

deleted by user

oldby

Thankyou to everyone on these threads they have bee most informative
for me.We purchased a Claire 2 str sofa and Claire chair in Aniline leather ln Jan 2009 from FV delivered about March. Since then we have had one total replacement of cushions and leather due to foam collapsing and leather "de-laminating" on back cushion. This was done in January 2011.In April 2012 we notified them of the same problem again with the new replaced material. Again they agreed to replace then lost the parts!!
Had to phone FV of course to remind them, eventually materials arrived they fitted it on Friday August 24th firming the webbing under the seat cushions, within 3 days the leather on the chair cushion started to peel and the back sofa cushion was not dealt with.

After going to see the store manager they sent a letter more or less washing their hands of the problem.

We will be pursuing this; however has anyone else had a problem with the Claire suite?

hope this is the right place to put this.

malchish

cashisking1 wrote: »

Hello,

Just wanted you all to know that we got a good result from FV, who were polite and agreeable overall.

We took off an amount from the total because we had used the damn things for several years and feel that one should be fair and reasonable too, plus it made the result occur much faster and without bad feelings.

The whole process was pleasant, polite and no one got angry nor excitable.

My law studies helped on how to present the evidence, however this forum is all you need if you are shy. FV will have your purchase logged even if it was years ago, which is commendable.

All credit to FV actually as they could have just told us to 'do one' and have been rude. But they were not and this did surprise me. We might even go back in the future to look at their other stuff.... crazy? maybe.

Bottom line?
But for this forum we would have thrown them out and got zippo for naff, ruined non 100% genuine sofas, so thanks to everyone.:T

Well done! Brilliant result! FV now are far more careful, and they won't repeat the past mistakes (Office of Fair Trading watching them VERY closely). They actually have a lot of quality furniture, and, if you caqn visit one ofr their store, they always have a clearance corner, where you can buy something very nice for quite a reasonable price.
They also sell some sofas in "full aniline" leather, those items, being initially expensive, will wear beautifully and will stay looking brand new after years of use. I can't believe I am sounding as if promoting FV now lol

judyb

Sounds as though there is another problem going on here. An Aniline leather cannot delaminate as it has no surface coating that can peel. An Aniline leather is a dyed leather which is why they last longer than a finished (coated, protected) leather. They are also generally made from full grain leather rather than top grain which means they are a better quality to start with.
Hope this helps
Judyb