Warning - DON'T BUY FROM HARVEYS THE FURNITURE STORE - we did and we regretted it!

ReasonablePerson

In March 2010 my partner and I ordered 2 Hannah 2 seater sofas online from Harveys the furniture store. We had seen them in 2 different stores so knew the colour and texture of the fabric, but purchased them online when they were being offered at the best price. The only apparent drawback to ordering these sofas was the 11 week delivery time which seemed a long wait (little did we know then…).

Sofas no.s 1 and 2 (delivered June 2010) consisted of 2 sofas in the wrong colour. We did not let the delivery men unload them from the lorry. The delivery men advised that they would order 2 replacements in the correct colour – but that we’d have an expected wait of around 11 further weeks.

The replacement sofas (no.s 3 and 4) duly arrived in Sept 2010. Although they were the correct colour, sofa 3 was found to have a hole in the fabric, which was discussed with the delivery men. They agreed it was not acceptable and photographed the damage saying they would order a replacement which would have about an 8 week delivery time and that someone would contact us about it in the next few days. Whilst the delivery men were here most attention was focussed on sofa no. 3 but we briefly looked over sofa no. 4 for holes in the fabric and found none. After they had left we took time to examine sofa no. 4 properly, and found a problem with the texture of the fabric in places – to the point that the left hand seat did not match the right hand seat (the mismatch of fabric on this sofa meant that it was clearly a second and would never be fit for display purposes in one of their stores, so, it was clearly not of an acceptable quality to us). We waited for the promised telephone call from Harveys about sofa no. 3 - so we could also report the quality problem with sofa 4 as well - but the call never came.

Within the 7 day notification period I therefore sent an email to the only Harveys email address we could find (which we had previously corresponded with) to report the problem with sofa no. 4 (I deliberately chose to use email so I would have evidence of having reported it within the required period). No response was received.

Several weeks later we received a call from Harveys advising us of the delivery date for our ‘replacement delivery’. I asked them to clarify whether this was for sofa 3, sofa 4 or both. They said they had no knowledge of any problem with sofa 4. I explained where I had reported the problem to, when and why and that I could provide photographic evidence of the problem with the fabric. They told me I had reported it to the wrong department but that they would honour the complaint as we had reported it back to Harveys within the notification period stipulated on the website. However, they then said that if we wanted both sofas replaced, they would have to cancel the replacement for sofa 3 and order 2 new sofas, but if they did that we’d have to wait an indefinite period of time and we certainly wouldn’t get them until after Christmas 2010!!!!!!!!!

By this time we were incredibly fed up with their shoddy service and the endless months of waiting for furniture of an acceptable quality; my partner therefore spoke to them by telephone and agreed that we’d stick with the order for a single sofa to replace sofa 3 (due late Nov/early Dec 2010), but that we wanted compensation for the faulty sofa 4 and for all the messing about we’d had to put up with. They confirmed that they would be willing to discuss compensation with us but only once the replacement for sofa 3 had arrived (in case there were any further complications regarding that delivery that would need to be considered).

Sofa no. 5 turned up in Dec 2010. The recliner mechanism on this sofa was slightly suspect on one side but we accepted it as we felt that this would probably ease up in due course. Sofa no. 3 was collected at the same time. After nearly 9 months of waiting and 3 separate deliveries we therefore finally had 2 sofas to use, albeit that they didn’t quite match each other (due to being produced at different times), and sofa no. 4 was clearly not of the quality it should have been. We therefore contacted customer services again to sort out the compensation discussed. At this point, they then had the cheek to tell us that they ‘didn’t do compensation’ so we must have been misinformed by their colleague, but as a goodwill gesture they offered to refund us the £59 delivery charge!

We were both livid at this stage, but were experiencing significant problems in another area of our lives, which at the time were causing me huge amounts of stress. Unbeknownst to me therefore, my partner decided we couldn’t face another fight over the compensation, and resignedly accepted the £59 delivery fee refund, which in no way compensates us for our 9 months of waiting to get the 2 sofas we had ordered, with one of them being clearly of substandard quality. When I found out what he’d done I was very annoyed that we’d let Harveys get away with it, so I’m making it my mission to make sure as many people as possible get to know what an awful company they are to deal with.

Incidentally, we can’t praise the delivery men highly enough, all of them were wonderful ambassadors of the company – shame the same cannot be said of the staff working in their misnamed ‘customer services’ department. Harveys claim ‘We guarantee to value your custom and will do everything possible to ensure you are delighted with your purchase’. From our experience, we guarantee they won’t.