Faulty sofa from furniture village.

Wobble68

Pbants wrote: »

Please could you provide me with the documentation, I think that I will have to go down this route also.

Me too please.



Thanks


John

jaspig

Hi If you would like all my files that I used to present my case and won against Furniture Village then please send me a private message and i will send you a link.

I would have provided a direct link but the forum wouldn't let me.

Sorry to those who have been waiting but i had to edit out some of my personal details from the files. Best of luck and keep us updated of progress as it is always good for others in a similar situation.

Oneoclockgun

Thanks to Jaspig and everyone for their contributions. I have just been offered £350 as a goodwill gesture from FV. My sofas are 6 years old come this december. I expected real leather to last a MINIMUM OF 10 YEARS and longer. At no point during exchanges with FV have they admitted that I was deceived. Plenty of talk about my dissapointment though hence their goodwill offer which they now refer to as COMPENSATION. its not good enough. I now have to purchase two new sofas so its time for the small claims court.

Note to JASPIG: Can you please advise me as to how I can obtain your documents enabling me to get the ball rolling.

Thanks again to all

MoanerLisa

Hello again, you scaly Scala scandalees. Just thought I’d drop by with the news that I took on the monolithic entity that is Furniture Village, and whooped their massive spotty be-hind. Read on if you were sold faulty furniture with their fabulous 5 year guarantee, because this might help you…

I bought a 3 piece Scala suite in February 2010, and reported the peeling to them in January 2014. They didn’t even bother to come out to examine the fault; 14 pages of this forum begins to explain why. Having read these pages, I checked my literature, but it definitely said ‘durable coated leather’. Bummer. However, I still considered it misrepresentation, as they inconsistently and obviously deliberately referred to ‘the leather’ elsewhere, and specifically endorsed Guardsman ‘leather’ protection for use with this product. ‘GOLD! GOLD! Get your (fools) GOLD here!’ A product should match all elements of its description, so I kept on at them. Two telephone calls, one ‘sorry, the system’s down’, one ‘she’s at lunch, she’ll call you back’ (she didn’t), three ignored website chat contacts, and two emails to the Product After(don’t)care Team, then somebody noticed that I was trying to get their attention. Hurrah, give the girl a medal! The phrase ‘trying to nail jelly to the ceiling’ springs to mind.

So, I finally got a response. I was offered £416 towards reselection to another product (from their range, obviously), or £300 to keep the shabby chic suite, shut up and go away. I replied saying no way not neither not now not never, and contacted Citizen’s Advice, Trading Standards, and eventually the Furniture Ombudsman. All of which, might I add, were about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

The Furniture Ombudsman deserves a paragraph all of his own. This ‘independent adjudicator’ came back to me, after a full six weeks, saying that the retailer had ‘agreed’ to an increased offer to keep of £350. Well, wasn’t that big of them, huh? You’ve got to doubt his impartiality there, really. I did exactly that, in writing, at which point he came back saying that he had been in further contact with the retailer, who were now ‘willing to offer’ a collection and £440.83 partial refund. This offer was clearly more financially detrimental to Furniture Village, but he failed to make it initially? Oh good, let’s haggle with the Ombudsman. As if there isn’t anything better to do. Like gouging one’s own eyeballs out with a medieval ladle. I digress. The Ombudsman threw his toys out of the proverbial pram, and refused to talk to me any more. He claimed that it was my ‘full legal entitlement and the partial refund conveys a reasonable remedy in the circumstances’. Reasonable remedy my tush! If only there was an Ombudsmen Ombudsman.

Having received this decision, I went back to the Village of Fake Leather (sorry, ‘coated leather’), and advised them that I would be taking them to the Small Claims Court. Another insulting offer of ‘£440.83 to be put towards a different suite from our current range and we would also offer a preferential discount off the price of this different suite of 10%’. Doesn’t take a genius to work out who benefits mostly from that arrangement. I’m still not sure how I resisted the temptation to reinvest in another of their shoddy products, especially since they had ‘continually tried to increase this value using a great deal of discretion because we want to rebuild our relationship with you’. They’d got a Clever One on my case by this point, not just a call centrerer with no clout. You could tell, because she actually replied to my emails, and messaged me after the close of play on a work day. They smelt determination, and tried to quash it. Fail.

Blah blah blah, court forms and research, blah blah blah. Then October came to pass, and the day of the hearing. The local store manager attended, and was perfectly civil and suitably humble, but maintained his position of Douchebag Extraordinaire when it came to trying to wriggle out of Furniture Village’s responsibilities. Essentially, the verdict came down to their 5 year guarantee. Nothing else was even considered. In the literature that I was given with my suite, Furniture Village state:

‘The Furniture Village 5 year guarantee covers all the items listed below and is an extra benefit in addition to your normal statutory and legal rights. Obviously, fair wear and tear in normal domestic use is excluded, and this applies in particular to upholstery fabric and leathers whether for sofas, chairs or beds. That aside, the following items are covered, subject to the terms and conditions overleaf:

Upholstery: All main structural components are covered, such as the frame, castors and castor blocks, springs and spring units, webbing plus recliner actions and motors’.

Given that my suite was in an otherwise immaculate condition, Furniture Village could not have claimed that it was fair wear and tear (even if they had examined it, which they hadn’t). In their defence statement, they claimed that they ‘can only confirm that this issue may occur where there has been a failure of sealing on the surface of the covers of the furniture’, therefore acknowledging it as a manufacturing defect. Judgie said that this should therefore be covered by their 5 year guarantee, under the umbrella of ‘Upholstery’. The ‘leather’ is not specifically excluded, apart from due to fair wear and tear, which they weren’t claiming that it was, and so must be considered to be covered by the guarantee.

The next point in question was that under their terms and conditions, they state that: ‘Consistent with meeting its obligations under this guarantee, Furniture Village reserves the right to undertake the least cost option to itself. This may involve rectifying the problem, arranging for the unsatisfactory component to be replaced or refunding part of the original purchase price’. Judgie pooh-poohed the store manager’s defence of this disclaimer, and said that a guarantee’s a guarantee. It should be the retailer’s problem that they are ‘unable’ to repair or replace the suite, and these deficiencies should not be passed onto the buyer. He called the literature ‘weasel words’, and said that ‘refunding part of the original purchase price’ was ambiguous, and it should not be left up to the consumer to guess that they will lose 1/60th of the value of their suite per month.

I’m not a lawyer, but I imagine that this case could have set a legal precedent. If you wish to use it in your own negotiations, the Claim Number number is A05YM026. There’s probably a public record of it somewhere, if you know where to look.

So, Furniture Village got a right royal telling off. They were instructed to give me a full refund, and go away and reconsider the clarity of their literature. I get to keep the suite, which is still in great nick apart from one teeny tiny peely patch on the 3 seater. It was hard work, but it was worth it for the victory – and the cheque for £1,247 that cleared in my account this morning. So, good luck to all you sofa scam soldiers. I hope this has given some of you more arrows to your bow, and more of you some confidence to go get ’em, Tiger. Rant over and out.

fairdealfairy

Full refund for damaged sofa, without having to issue proceedings!
They obviously didn't want more bad publicity for mis selling of products!

After reading MoanerLisa's result, I realise they got a better deal as we had to forfeit the suite for our refund but heyho!

We were offered the deal on the Friday, sofa removed following Thursday, bank transfer overnight, cash in bank Friday. Happy days!:j

paters0n

Wobble68 wrote: »

Me too please.



Thanks


John

I would also like to have a copy. Thanks.


Paters0n

FJ80

Hi,

Would anyone be able to PM me the small claims court ref numbers that they have - past or present so that I can use them in court during my own claim hearing? FV have disregarded the findings on this forum so I'd like to present the judge with actual case refs. I hope someone can provide this as my hearing is very soon! Likewise, once I have had my day in court I will be more than happy to help anyone who may need some assistance.

Many thanks

hcb42

I too have an issue with this company and the woeful FIRA/Ombudsman, and have written to Watchdog today. Any assistance gratefully received even via pm

amorph

We too have problems with the scala sofa. Bought 7 years ago but thought it would last as "real leather". After peeling started to get really bad looked online and found this forum and realised we had been missold. Contacted FV and they offered £46 (but would round it up to £100 and we could keep sofas). Thanks FV. Got back to them with photos of furniture, original invoice (which stated the covers would settle and crease) and the original brochure which said "REAL LEATHER" and we wanted a full refund inc. delivery. Now they have got back to us saying £100 is what they are offering and they would keep the offer open until the end of Jan to give us "sufficient time to consider this and seek advice from Consumer Focussed agencies, such as the Furniture Ombudsman, whose advice is free". Quite frankly this just annoyed us even more and we want to take it further. Any help/advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

visidigi

amorph wrote: »

We too have problems with the scala sofa. Bought 7 years ago but thought it would last as "real leather". After peeling started to get really bad looked online and found this forum and realised we had been missold. Contacted FV and they offered £46 (but would round it up to £100 and we could keep sofas). Thanks FV. Got back to them with photos of furniture, original invoice (which stated the covers would settle and crease) and the original brochure which said "REAL LEATHER" and we wanted a full refund inc. delivery. Now they have got back to us saying £100 is what they are offering and they would keep the offer open until the end of Jan to give us "sufficient time to consider this and seek advice from Consumer Focussed agencies, such as the Furniture Ombudsman, whose advice is free". Quite frankly this just annoyed us even more and we want to take it further. Any help/advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

A full refund is absolutely unacceptable a request.

I'd go to 30-50% at most given your 7 years use.