Faulty sofa from furniture village.

Peeped

Amazing! What a coincidence.

On the Feb 10th I commented on a facebook page for disgruntled Furniture Village customers. It's called "Think before buying from Furniture Village".

To anyone going through similar problems with Furniture Village I strongly advise you to make your voice heard on that facebook page. Even if it only makes Furniture Village pay attention & stop ignoring you, it's worth it.

Bearing in mind, my last e-mail to Furniture Village was on the 28th Jan, and they've ignored me since then, today I magically got a letter from Furniture Village in the post (dated Feb 12th).

They re-state that padding/stuffing is not covered by their 5 year warranty, but make no comment on the main issue: should the stuffing flatten to such an extreme extent on a top-end nearly £3000.00 leather suite in the space of less than 4 years?

They also say that for a £60.00 fee they can arrange "FIRA" to send another technician to inspect the sofa.

visidigi

oldoakey wrote: »

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

Needs must. Furniture Village would let me collect from the warehouse the following day. The local dealer who I did go to first was a 4 week delivery schedule.

Needs must, its not as black as white as you make it seem

Peeped

visidigi wrote: »

Needs must. Furniture Village would let me collect from the warehouse the following day. The local dealer who I did go to first was a 4 week delivery schedule.

Needs must, its not as black as white as you make it seem

We waited 10-12 weeks for our Furniture Village suite to be assembled and delivered.

Peeped

I sent a letter stating that I request ideally a full, or part, refund for the suite. Furniture Village replied saying that "stuffing" issues are specifically NOT covered by their guarantee.

This means that, if like us, you buy an expensive leather sofa from them, and in 2 or 3 years your stuffing starts to flatten like a cheap pillow, then you're on your own.

From some research, cheaper end of the market sofas are stuffed with "hollow fibre" material - which is exactly the same kind of synthetic stuffing found in very cheap pillows and bedding. It flattens badly, and quickly, and has no durability. It sounds like our £2600 suite is stuffed with similar material.

The technician they sent our was from a company called "Furniture Care Network". They are now offering to send us another technician our for a second opinion - either from "Ecomaster" or "Homeserve".

All 3 of these companies are standard furniture cleaners/repairers and none of them are affiliated to FIRA. They're basically just contracted to Furniture Village and say whatever their masters want on the inspection reports.

The technician who visited us from "Furniture Care Network" verbally agreed with us on all of our complaints, and said it was a clear case of a design faulty. He then writes in his report that the issue is simply a case of "natural settlement over time" and "due to fair wear and tear". He wrote no report during his inspection, but took notes & photos on his smartphone/PDA device. I was not invited to look at any of his report during the visit, but at the end he handed me the PDA and a stylus, and casually said "Can you just sign your name here to say I've been here" - which I did.

george63

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

Hi I also have the same issue and have been offered £47 goodwill gesture! Have you had any luck with getting the evidence that they were advertising them as real leather. I know this was the case when I bought it but unfortunately the receipt does not have that detail. They are currently ignoring this issue when I raise it with them. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks

t1mjf

If you don't get anywhere with customer services (and I haven't got far) then take them to the Furniture Ombudsman. This is a free service and appears to offer a fair solution. One advantage of this is that you can provide a sample for testing.

Our Zante sofas started peeling last year when they were about 5 years old. We didn't think there was a lot we could do until we saw this forum and found out that they were not genuine leather, as we thought they were.

We even have the original ad that says "durable coated brown leather". The product is bi-cast which cannot be called leather, yet they still claim this is an acceptable term. They also claim in a letter that this sofa only has an expected lifetime of "6-8 years" - shame they didn't mention this when it was purchased.

We did have some interest from Don't Get Done, Get Dom on BBC1 and we completed a consent form and did a telephone interview, but now they don't even answer emails - which is ironic from a show that is supposed to be standing up for consumers!

In the meantime, if anyone has any brochures or leaflets that contain the Zante sofas then please let me know.

visidigi

t1mjf wrote: »

If you don't get anywhere with customer services (and I haven't got far) then take them to the Furniture Ombudsman. This is a free service and appears to offer a fair solution. One advantage of this is that you can provide a sample for testing.

Our Zante sofas started peeling last year when they were about 5 years old. We didn't think there was a lot we could do until we saw this forum and found out that they were not genuine leather, as we thought they were.

We even have the original ad that says "durable coated brown leather". The product is bi-cast which cannot be called leather, yet they still claim this is an acceptable term. They also claim in a letter that this sofa only has an expected lifetime of "6-8 years" - shame they didn't mention this when it was purchased.

We did have some interest from Don't Get Done, Get Dom on BBC1 and we completed a consent form and did a telephone interview, but now they don't even answer emails - which is ironic from a show that is supposed to be standing up for consumers!

In the meantime, if anyone has any brochures or leaflets that contain the Zante sofas then please let me know.

The majority of complaints on here are for the scala, which was advertised as real leather with the kite mark, that's a pretty solid ground to work off, coated leather I'm really not sure how good a case you'll have...

FJ80

Hi everyone,

I came across this forum a couple of days ago and I cannot thank you guys enough for all the helpful posts. I've been dealing with FV for the past few weeks and it's been a frustrating experience as I'm sure most of you will already know! We have been going round in circles, with me stating that I can't understand why 3 "leather" sofas would deteriorate in less than 6 years and FV basically being very vague in their response. Having read all the posts, I now know why.

Here is a snippet from my most recent email exchange with fv: [FONT=&quot]
FV: 'I am surprised to hear that you have literature professing the Scala to be ‘100% Leather’ because as you can see in the brochure page I sent you, the Scala is accurately described as a ‘durable coated leather’; this brochure was used in all of our showrooms in 2008, when you purchased your suite. I am truly sorry to hear that you feel misled and can assure you that we have never knowingly misled one of our valued Customers. There has never been a ‘ruling’ made against Furniture Village by Trading Standards regarding the sale of coated leather furniture, although I believe that there was a furniture retail industry-wide decision made some years ago, which stipulated that coated leather should not be described as 100% leather.'

I do have a leaflet from when I purchased the sofas which states 100% leather and was not advised that coated leather had a shorter shelf life. I'm still within the 6 year SoGA stipulation (just) and I am now contemplating taking them to a small claims court. I would be grateful if anyone can offer any advice and if anyone can provide me with details of the Trading Standards ruling, that would be a great help.
[/FONT]

fairdealfairy

Ronson model (Described as Aniline)Cream Leather Suite
Delivered November 2011, cost £3100. Have only ever used a damp cloth to clean, followed by conditioning cream (Supplied by Guardsman).

Used the supplied cleaner for the first time in February 2014 and it immediately stripped the leather off showing grey under as opposed to the cream it should be. Have also noticed brown pin size marks appearing all over the leather.

FV sent out their own upholstery tech, who claimed caused by heavy duty wear and tear. He also told me that the leather was not aniline but a "Cheap" leather! I asked for him to put this in his report but he wouldn't.

On taking the report up with FV, they offered to get a technician from F.I.R.A. He came out and stated that the sofa was absolutely not heavily used and was definitely not aniline leather, but a pigment coated and split leather.

FV contacted the manufacturer who claim the protective coating must have been missed but said nothing about the correct type of leather being missed!!

This is the latest FV response:
I can confirm that we can offer you one of the following options; firstly, we can give you a partial credit to use in store against an alternative product from our current range of £1647.00. When your chosen alternative arrives in stock, we would then exchange it for your current suite. Alternatively, this amount can be refunded to you by cheque after collection of your furniture from you.
If you wish to, we can also offer to give you a partial refund of £300.00, to keep your suite as it is. I must point out, however, that this option would mean that we have bought out the remainder of your guarantee (For which we paid £200) and as such would not consider any future problems you may experience.

We hope to settle amicably, but if needs be, Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to court we go!

Suite still on sale and advertised as upholstered in luxury full grain aniline leather!

visidigi

I'd push back for a higher refund. Puts the expected wear of the suite at a poor 5 years at the offered rate - I would push for at least £2k.