Help/advice DFS - Corner couch bad quality

deefadog

Ok, we bought our leather corner couch from DFS 3 years ago, for the first 2 years it was hardly used, it has had a bit more ware over the last year. This was the top of the range suite we bought costing £1600 and this was in the half price.double discount bla, bla, bla sale.

Basically the problem is that the fixed area that you sit on is constructed of foam, then feathers, then a membrane, then the leather! And the feathers are poking out of the leather, these are sharp and can pierce the skin more so for our 2 year old daughter!

Under the sales of goods act, this is obviously unacceptable! So we contact DFS and a week later a customer service manager came out to inspect it and basically he said "Tough" - this is what happens to these sort of feather couches! - there's nothing we can do! He could arrange for it to be re apolstered at our cost!

So we are stuck now, what can we do, are we in our rights to take this further? watchdog, the ferret, small claims?

Many thanks and sorry for the ramble

deefadog

? I have been thanked for this post, but no one has replied LoL

Any help on this guyz, really don't know what to do, do i have a case against DFS?

swagman

Hi
You have consumer rights under the Sale of Goods Act 1979, the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1973. All these specify that goods must be of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. These will include durability and safety in use. Scratch injury to a child using a sofa could not be decribed as safe.

If you purchased after 31 March 2003 you have more rights than if purchased before owing to changes in the law.

You do not any longer have the right to reject the goods as the length of time since purchase is enough to deem that you have accepted the goods. All that the law would make available to you now is probably to have the sofa repaired, with the store paying some part or all of that cost, subject to negotiation.

Unfortunately the legislation does not specify what is a reasonable length of time for goods to last in a usable condition.

You will have extra protection if you purchased using a credit card as in some circumstances the credit card company will have joint liability.

I think the best thing for you to do is to contact your nearest Citizens Advice Bureau. They are trained to deal with these problems and would ask you various questions to arrive at some idea of what you might secure from the company. The possible outcome can be affected by various things and a face-to-face conversation with them is a good next step.

They may give you an idea of how best to next approach the company and, if it seems worthwhile, how to claim in the small claims court if the company doesn't play ball.

deefadog

Thanks for the detailed info!

Yes next step Citizens Advice Bureau as suggested!

I'll keep this updated to see how i get on!

So a warning to purchases, don't but couches that have feather fillings! And DFS after sales service is terrible!

swagman

Unfortunately DFS does not seem too great. On another board I came across someone who repairs DFS 'failures' and who says that they are not made especially well. Lots are imported from China, he says, but I don't know whether that is correct.

Stick to your guns and follow it up - a lot of money and not enough use out of it I'd say. Good luck.

deefadog

Thanks will do!

littlejaffa

we fell for the dfs discount scam years ago and bought two sofa's,
had 2 probelms.

1st - we paid and extra £700 to have them scotchguarded but when they turned up no certificate for the guard, only after weeks of pestering them did it arrive but i've always been suspicious the sofa's weren't guarded and rather than admiting and refunding they sent us a certificate and hoped for the best.

2nd when we first removed the covers to was the sips burst, after another fruitless call to dfs i fixed them myself and gave up.

I wouldn't hold your breath on dfs sorting anything for you

deefadog

Thanks for the heads up on this!

I can see a way of fixing it, unpick the stiching along the hidden seam, take out the feather padding and replace with sponge and as it's leather it should be easy to re sow the leather up.

A friend of a friend is a re-uplostruer (spelling?) and i am going to get him to see if he can do it for me also or at least get some advice!

Apart from this big problem, the rest of the build is very good to be honest, this looks like a mistake they had made. ironically at the time we bought the most expensive corner style and the cheaper one was all foam - which the DFS manager him self said that the best filling is foam as it retains it's shape, next was fiber filling and last was feathers!!!!

swagman

It is often a case of balancing the hassle of pursuing a claim with what alternative you have.

Were you to try CAB and, on hearing all the details they advised you that you DO have a case, they would tell you what to put in a letter to DFS, probably including a deadline after which you would sue them in the small claims court. The small claims procedure is straightforward and designed not to be off putting. CAB would also explain about that. The court fees would be about £80 to £120 assuming you were claiming something between £500 and £1500.

The company would then either let it go to the wire then make an offer at the last minute, or (unlikely) contest it at the small claims court, or totally ignore the whole thing. If you win, the amount you are awarded must be paid by the company and the court can enforce that.

Companies rely on people deciding that they can't be bothered, so in your case it may depend on how easy and how costly any repair will be. If it is below likely court costs then what to do may be obvious!

Sometimes people press on to court because they don't like to see companies getting away with stuff. The choice, of course, is yours.

deefadog

Thanks for the info, i'll give CAB a ring on Friday

burundi

deefadog wrote: »

I can see a way of fixing it, unpick the stiching along the hidden seam, take out the feather padding and replace with sponge and as it's leather it should be easy to re sow the leather up.

If you are up for unpicking the stitching then go for it, but instead of replacing the feathers reinforce the seam with a strip of leather or vinyl to stop the feathers sticking through.

deefadog wrote: »

Apart from this big problem, the rest of the build is very good to be honest, this looks like a mistake they had made. ironically at the time we bought the most expensive corner style and the cheaper one was all foam - which the DFS manager him self said that the best filling is foam as it retains it's shape, next was fiber filling and last was feathers!!!!

Depends on the type of foam, most foam will lose it's shape over time, they get brittle and compress more easily and take longer to regain their original shape.

Fibres lessen this as you can plump them up again by shaking the cushion to redistribute them and get air between them again.

Feathers are still considered the premium filling by many manufacturers because of their durability and the owners ability to 'plump' the cushions back to their original shape. However with feathers you also need a decent underlying sprung frame to support them as they don't support as well as foam does which helps to distribute the weight.

Perhaps the DFS sales manager means that on their frames foam is the better type of filling as it gives additional support that the frame can't give to feather filled cushions? On other manufacturers units you would probably be fine with feathers.