dfs

J_P_S

sorry if this turns into a long post but i am fuming.

me and my girlfriend ordered a sofa from DFs in feb, just before their latest sale ended , it is a 3 seater reclining sofa with supposedly 2 electric motors inside so it operates electrically, after waiting 10 weeks for delivery it was delivered while we were on holiday so we arranged for my girlfriends mother to be in to receive it.

the settee is so big that it arrived in 4 parts and had to be assembled in the living room, this also meant that we had to have the room 100% ready for it as it cannot now be removed without dismantling it.

when they had built it one side didnt work, they still tried to get my gf's mom to sign to say it worked, not sure why but thankfully she refused.

a 2nd visit was arranged for the first monday after our short break away, a man came and couldnt fix it saying it needed a new motor, bearing in mind this motor hasnt been used as its never worked!

that was 2-3 weeks ago now and despite many assurances of calls back etc from the store and head office it still doesnt work. i have again chased it myself today, the store have received their delivery, only the part sent isnt what we need.

noone at the store seems willing to ever accept this is100% not our fault. the best offer we have had so far is a 2nd hand motor out of the display model to tide us over. i have refused this on the thinking that once we have the 2nd hand one we wont hear from them again.

now i know under the sales of goods act i have the right to demand they take it away, trouble is the living room has been decorated to match the settee so until now i didnt want that.

it doesnt matter who you speak to, be they at the store or head office, its the same story you get fobbed off and no calls back.
normally even if you have to keep calling back you can get someone with half an ounce of customer satisfcation skills.

it seems DFs are completely devoid of any idea how to handle complaints!!

am i allowed to charge storage for this item seeing as it has never been what we were sold?

one side does work but if we had only wanted one side we could have saved a lot of money and gone for an armchair!!

dangeroussports

Another DFS post!......you could type the letters 'dfs' in the search facility and read about the horrors people have had with DFS.

If theres a chance you can get your money back, then do it. According to previous MSEr's DFS is NOT the place to buy sofas.......

J_P_S

I did a quick search before i posted and can see the many posts!

i now realise DFS is not the place to use and obviously i will never use them again now!

the area manager has called me now after i spoke to the md's pa! he has taken responsibility for this now he says, which is nice because noone else seems to

he apologised too, more than anyone before him managed!

apparently the factory is shut until monday now, he will chase it up monday and call me he claims.

re the money, its interest free so being good money savers we went for that option, as a result we dont start paying until next year.

am i right in asking for some form of recompense for all the hassle and cost of the calls, noone there so far has agreed we should be compensated, i can see i will have to write to head office now that i have the name of the md's pa!

Tim_Deegan

About 18 months ago I purchased 2x 2 seater leather sofas from DFS. When they arrived six weeks later there was a problem with the stitching right in the middle of one of the seats (I don't know how it got through quality control, as it was obvious).

One of their service engineers turned up a couple of days later. He trid to repair it, but couldn't, so he ordered a replacement seat leather.

Another six weeks later he returned to fit the new seat leather. While he was there I pointed out that the colour was flaking off on the other sofa. The problem was only on 2 leather panels that appeared to be cut from the same piece. The engineer tried to repair the problem using what appeared to be spray paint, and a buffer. It seemed to do the trick, and he said that if it happened again we should call them, and they would replace the leather.

Well after a few weeks the colour started to flake again. I had been meaning to call them for ages, but the guarantee was for 2 years so there was no rush.

A few weeks ago I did eventually call them, and they sent an engineer out. He then arranged for his manager to come out. The service manager said that they would try to order the new seat leather, but if they couldn't get it, then they would have to exchange the sofas.

A couple of weeks later I received a phone call asking me to come and choose 2 new sofas, as they don't do the same colour any more. So we had a look, and chose 2 sofas that were actually very similar to the ones we had, except that due to the current sale they were £100 cheaper each.

The service manager then told us that we would have to pay £200 towards the sofas because we have had 18 months use out of them. I did point out that they were actually £200 cheaper than ours, but he said that if they had been the same price we would have to pay £400.

We then had a lengthy argument about the fact that the sofas were faulty, and that they should be repaired or replaced under the guarantee. He said they couldn't repair them, so I said replace them.......he said he couldn't replace them for free, so I said that I insist they repair them. This went on for ages, in which time I actually advised 2 ladies who were browsing that they shouldn't buy from DFS because their service manager had just admitted that their sofas didn't last 3 months, and that the guarantee wasn't worth the paper it was written on. They promptly left the store.

Anyway I told the manager that I would contact my solicitor on the Monday, and that in the mean time I would stand outside the store and tell all their prospective customers the truth about them. And that I would also write to my local papers. At this point he changed his tune and said that he would call his head office on Monday.

By 10am on Monday he had called me to say that we could have the replacement sofas, but could we go for a darker colour so that it wouldn't show any wear and tear. I told him that we would order whatever colour we liked (which actually turned out to be a few shades darker).

Now I think they are delaying our order, as they say it's going to take 11 weeks.........but hey, at least the problem should be sorted eventually.:T :T :T