Faulty sofa from furniture village.

TheCiscoKid

Hi Westlander I've sent you a PM separately re your's to me.

Quick update, we are still in Court proceedings with FV; they have defended with "Scala was sold as coated leather" (which it wasn't, and anyway Scala is not made of leather!) so I have had to pay another £40 to send evidence in support of my claim. I believe it will go to Court but how long this will take is anyone's guess. No doubt they are reading this forum, so they can rest assured I will not give up.

westlander

TheCiscoKid wrote: »

Hi Westlander I've sent you a PM separately re your's to me.

Quick update, we are still in Court proceedings with FV; they have defended with "Scala was sold as coated leather" (which it wasn't, and anyway Scala is not made of leather!) so I have had to pay another £40 to send evidence in support of my claim. I believe it will go to Court but how long this will take is anyone's guess. No doubt they are reading this forum, so they can rest assured I will not give up.

Thank you CiscoKid! It's nice to know we are not alone. We won't be giving up either and will be advising FV of our intention to take this matter down the legal route.

Good luck and I'll keep Forum posted of outcome.

lesleyp118

jaxsunderland wrote: »

I refused first offer of £111 based on the life span of six years; this was said to be based on a "usage charge of 16.67% per year" ( I had the sofas just over five years when peeling became a real problem). They then offered £300 based on a usage charge of 12.5%. But this still does not address the mis-selling issue. I am now about to fill out a small claims court form.

I would be keen to hear how you got on, we have the same Alexis suite, and just been offered a similar derisory amount to include "depreciation" as we have had our suite for almost the 6 years. Obviously we rejected their offer and are awaiting a further offer.

Unfortunately, the peeling started a while ago, but we only found out about the possible misselling issue recently. I would be interested to see the original brochure, which I noted from an earlier post that you have retained. We threw ours away, and presumably any tags that were originally on the sofas. If I send you a personal message, maybe you could let me have a copy of the brochure?

oldby

:j

Re my last posting of 24th Sept. and ones previous to this. Although we did not have problems that many have had on this thread with FV as our sofa and chair was leather. Our problem was the colour rubbing away on the back of the sofa together with poor housekeeping by the visiting technician on the armchair.

Because this problem had gone on with FV for some considerable time since April 2012 and they had promised much but never kept it; peopie were " on holiday or away for a couple of days " or had actually lost the replacement seat cushions etc; etc:
Then they were going to get their own expert to look at the problems, we waited and waited but after a month we had, had enough and decided to employ our own Consultant and Member of the Society of Leather Technologists and Chemists who was also an Associate Member of the Trading Standards Institute.His opinion was that; " The surface of the leather does indeed appear to be rubbing away... this therefore raises the question wether the leather is perforforming to British and European standards for Leather BSEN13336:2004 On balance the extent the finish has failed is not down to consumer abuse but more likely as a result of the top colour layers not bonding correctly to the leather during the finishing process"

This was an extensive report for us.We were shocked and went straight to" Martins Money Tips" to obtain template letters for the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) and Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 these were sent to FV and our Credit Card Company who acted immediately :T before we went to
the Small Claims Court.We have just received our full refund including the cost of our own Leather Consultant.

The reason we have detailed our storey on this thread is to say do not give up, we still had to tell them what the full refund amount was even though they had all the reports and info. If you feel you are in the right after reading all the threads on this subject from many fantastic contributors then go ahead gather the facts and NEVER GIVE UP

Sorry about the lecture from a couple 77 year olds.:)

Billy_Butler_2

Hello All,
I purchased a 2 & 3 seat Scala Sofa from FV in March 2007, they definately promoted it as leather and after both the sofas shreading I looked on the Web and found this forum.
I spoke to FV Head office this morning and they basically said that because its out of warranty then they can't do anything. I told them I will be taking the matter further as I have been mis-sold, as I shall.
I take it I now need to write some letters to both head office of FV and consumer direct/trading standards about this case?
Any help greatly received...

lesleyp118

jaxsunderland wrote: »

Thanks Visidigi... I have the original Alexis brochure complete with the leather symbol alongside the main picture and also on the reverse side, so I shall await their response.

I'd be interested if you are able to send me a copy of the Alexis brochure as we have had our "leather" tested from our Alexis suite and it's been confirmed as "coated leather" not to the British Standard for leather. Do you have the brochure as a scanned image that you could send me via a PM?? Thanks

TheCiscoKid

Billy_Butler wrote: »

Hello All,
I purchased a 2 & 3 seat Scala Sofa from FV in March 2007, they definately promoted it as leather and after both the sofas shreading I looked on the Web and found this forum.
I spoke to FV Head office this morning and they basically said that because its out of warranty then they can't do anything. I told them I will be taking the matter further as I have been mis-sold, as I shall.
I take it I now need to write some letters to both head office of FV and consumer direct/trading standards about this case?
Any help greatly received...

Hi Billy_Butler,
Their "out of warranty" argument is irrelevant because it only related to structure of furniture and not the covering; in any case your complaint is mis-selling, not faulty furniture so again it's irrelevant. Under the sale of goods act you have six years to bring the case so you have some time if you act quickly. You can try Citizens Advice or whatever but personally I found them fairly unhelpful and vague. My case is still at the "going through the courts" stage so I'll be updating when it moves forward.
Good luck!

hethmar

lesleyp118 wrote: »

I'd be interested if you are able to send me a copy of the Alexis brochure as we have had our "leather" tested from our Alexis suite and it's been confirmed as "coated leather" not to the British Standard for leather. Do you have the brochure as a scanned image that you could send me via a PM?? Thanks

We have the same sofas, bought for £799 in August 2006 - hardly used but started peeling about 9 months ago. We had a leather restorer here in December and were shocked when he told us he couldnt help because they were not real leather but bi cast - he said to us it was like "chipboard is to real wood".

I did write to customer services in December telling them this and saying how disappointed we were and they told me the manager of the local shop would contact me after xmas - he hasnt. I wasnt aware this was such a huge issue until i came on here yesterday asking whether people could recommend new sofas to buy!


Ihave now sent a further email to customer services saying that I was amazed to have found that they had missold the sofas as leather and asking them what they intend to offer us in compensation. I feel quite angry now as I can remember the sales person saying to us that with leather, it will improve in appearance as its ages (my husband had commented it looked a bit tight and shiny). I have also dug out my receipt which refers to the sofas as "L" and then gives advice on care of "hide" furniture which clearly they werent.

I am very interested to see how those who are taking FV to court get on as it would be worth the small claims fee to do this myself - it will cost them more in defence and time than the sofas are worth.

FV should surely have contacted all customers who had bought under the belief they were buying leather sofas way back when it first became an issue. Not kept their heads down knowing this would be happening to everyone who bought them? Its not a straight forward case of faulty goods after all, but deception over the quality of the goods? On this thread it says that they were told by Trading Standards to refund ALL those who had bought this sofas believing they were leather.

lesleyp118

hethmar wrote: »

Anyone help please?

Hethmar, I've sent you a pm with some details for the brochure I was pointed to, however, the Alexis suite seems to be a different kettle of fish from the Scala. You say your leather restorer said it was bi-cast, my leather tester said it was coated leather - neither of which should have the real leather symbols attached. The brochure seems to mention both "leather" and "practical coated leather"

We've had several communications from the Store and Customer Services, and now they say they have an agreed way of dealing with this, having worked with Trading Standards, blah, blah, blah, and confirming that it is coated leather and don't accept the mis-selling. So they are only offering refunds based on the age of the suite - in our case £133 as it's just on the 6 year point. I doubt you'd get anything as you're definitely over the 6 years.

I only wish we'd done something about it when we first noticed the peeling.

Good luck - you'll need it!

hethmar

Thanks Lesley, yes, wish we had done the same too, we just tried to repair it ourselves, covered it with throws and lastly got in a restorer who told us it was the duff stuff and he couldnt help.

Im surprised at their reaction to you though as the earlier posts on here refer to a ruling made by Trading Standards that it was missold. It does seem odd the varied results people have got, full refunds, new sofa sets or partial repayments. Cant understand why its not a standard response.

Ive pmd, but just to say Ive the original receipt saying the sofas are leather and giving details of caring for "hide" furniture.

We shall see ................