Faulty sofa from furniture village.

Judilu

We bought alexis 2 and 3 seaters sofa plus an armchair from fv in february 2007. The 2 seaters started to peel off this summer so outside the 6 years. After reading these post this morning i rang them and the girl i spoke to could only say that if i had contacted them within the 6 years they could do something and i kept saying that the problem appeared after the 6 years so could not report it before. Very annoying phone call! I am very disappointed with the quality. Is there anybody how complain outside the 6 years who got compensation and how did they managed this. I only have a receipt of the purchase and nowhere it state leather but am pretty sure we thought we bought leather sofa at the time.
Thanks for the help

jaspig

Hi All, I could really do with anyone's help as I wish to take Furniture Village to the small claims court due to the peeling pretend leather sofas I have purchased. I purchased these in January 2006 and need some evidence that they were selling/advertising these as real leather at that time. If anyone also has any other supporting evidence such as trading standards actions etc that these sofas were mis sold I would be most grateful. I would be happy to work with others as well to try and get our money back for this utter rubbish we purchased unknowingly. Thank you to anyone who can assist. Jason

fred7777

jaspig wrote: »

Hi All, I could really do with anyone's help as I wish to take Furniture Village to the small claims court due to the peeling pretend leather sofas I have purchased. I purchased these in January 2006 and need some evidence that they were selling/advertising these as real leather at that time. If anyone also has any other supporting evidence such as trading standards actions etc that these sofas were mis sold I would be most grateful. I would be happy to work with others as well to try and get our money back for this utter rubbish we purchased unknowingly. Thank you to anyone who can assist. Jason

Me too.

I have 2 pretend "leather" scala sofa bought as leather in 2010 which is peeling.

Furniture village have offered £200 off a new sofa (refund down against original price to reflect the use I have had and the furniture's 6 year total life span) provided I return the existing sofas to them.

annhan

hi all

bought a sofa from fv about 9 months ago, a leather recliner, the sofa has started creaking when used and leather seating area has decreased a lot in this period of time, is this normal?

thanks
ann

mbbetter

Hi,

Another disappointed furniture village customer.

We bought the Scala back in 2006.

We spent approx £1200 on a 3 seater and a single seat "leather" sofa. After a few emails and letters:

We have been offered (first offer) around £250 compensation.

Still not happy, we are considering further actions. We are well outside 6 years - should we just stick with the £250 / push them for more / take more formal action.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Cheers - good luck all.

Chickabiddybex

Annhan - what do you mean by "decreased"?

annhan

Chickabiddybex wrote: »

Annhan - what do you mean by "decreased"?

hi

the sofa on that side has sunk in more so than the other side, the sofa has been used no more on one side than the other!
Hope that makes sense

Chickabiddybex

Yep that makes sense - it's not something we can tell is normal or not but if you contact Furniture Village, perhaps send them photos, they might try to rectify it for you.

Peeped

Hi everyone. Long time lurker - first time poster.

I'm at my wits end with Furniture Village. Can someone give me some advice?

We bought a cream leather 3 piece suite. from FV (Milton Keynes) in 2010 at a cost of about £2700. The sofa, and one of the chairs, are recliners.

In the store, the salesman handed us a single page leaflet, promoting FV's "generous" 5 year guarantee on "EVERYTHING!". This really sealed the deal for us, as our last leather suite lasted for 10 years. This gave us some assurance that FV were confident in their products. How wrong we were.
(by the way, there was nothing in the way of small print on this leaflet - but obviously we signed the contract at the payment desk)

Less than 4 years later, the sofa is almost too uncomfortable to sit on for more than 10 minutes at a time. The stuffing material in the recliners have degraded and flattened in the areas directly under the spine, and against the lower back.

Only my husband I are in the house, and he works full time. We're not big/heavy people, so the furniture has not seen abuse or even hard use.

I would expect some flattening of the foam stuffing over time, but not to this degree in such a short time. It is possible to feel the wood/metal frame protruding into the small of our backs. I can pinch the affected area between finger and thumb, and there is no resistance whatsoever - and I have arthritis!

Obviously, I was dissatisfied and contracted FV in September 2013. They listened to my complaint and sent an "Independent technician" to test our furniture. He arrived over a month later in a white van, and said he was self employed. He sat in each of the chairs, had them rolled over onto the floor for closer inspection, prodded the stuffing, etc.

How I wish I had set up my camera to record the whole conversation during his visit, as he completely agreed with me. He said it was a quality and design fault and we would be essentially "looking from a gesture of good will from Furniture Village". He assured me he would report and confirm all of our complaints. He also slagged off DFS, saying they were some of the worst to deal with. Not very professional, I thought.

A week or so later (after chasing up FV several times by phone/email) I got a reply from them saying that the inspection report had found no serious faults with the furniture and we would not be entitled to any compensation or exchanges in accordance with their 5-year guarantee t&c's.

I was dumbfounded and replied via e-mail, and have received nothing. This was 3 weeks ago. I have written a final complaint to them, asking for a reply in 7 days but I don't expect anything to change.

Am I right to follow this through the small claims court? I have looked into the Furniture Ombudsmen but the organization is directly funded by companies DHS/Mobin/Dolphin/etc. They send out a "independent technician" too. Not keen on reliving that experience again.

I have read the Sales of Goods Act, and I'm also aware that goods must be of a merchantable quality, and also last a reasonable amount of time". I would argue that 3 years 11 months is not a reasonable amount of time, for furniture that has seen medium use, and cost £2700.00. If I had purchased a cheap Ikea or Argos model, I could accept it but this was a high cost, high-end purchase.

Do you think I have a good chance through the small claims court? Has anyone had success themselves?

Any advice is appreciated as I don't know where else to turn! THANK YOU!!

oldoakey

Once again a large out of town furniture retailer is found to be stuffing customers with untruths and basically lying in their advertising.
Unfortunately this always seems to be at the cost of the consumer in time, effort and stress if not money.

I hope that in future you all look a little further to find a reputable local independent furniture store to buy from and dig into the specifications of the piece that your buying rather than just the headline interest free offer remember the truth is there is no free lunch.

Anything offered seemingly free is just not what it says it is, the store pay the finance on interest free credit, so weigh that into the retail price and maybe you can see that for £799 your only getting a £599 sofa