Sharps v Hammonds Furniture

Kimbo223

Read all your replies and just decided to post on my expirience. A mate of mine recommended Bravo London sliding door wardrobe company. Was a totally great experience with de guys. The choice of designs, styles was so large that it was hard to make a choice. me and my most of all my wife are very happy

SleeplessinSuffolk

We booked a Hammonds salesman visit on 1st Jan 2012. Alsolooked at Sharps and, despite poor online reviews, went with Hammonds primarilydue to the better quality of product. Subsequently their surveyor paid a visit to draw up the final plans -total bill £6000+.

We advised Hammonds that we planned to strip out the oldfurniture and paint and decorate during the 1st week of the school Easterholidays and would like them to fit the furniture during the second week - butthat our carpet fitter was due on the Friday (13 April) - and during term timethe house is empty. So we thought theTue & Wed would be best - with the Thursday as an option if things went wrong.

Hammonds chose to fit on the Wednesday and Thursday. By the time they advised us of this we hadparted with over £5000 and when we suggested that Tue/Wed would be better incase of unforeseen problems, they sent a very terse email drawing our attentionto a clause in their ‘customer handbook’ which says we should not book carpetfitters etc immediately after Hammond’s fitting dates ‘in case of unforeseendifficulties’.

Well…. Today is Thursday 12th. It’s noon. The fitter(who has done his absolute best) is about to leave. The bedroom is barely started. A complete mess from the word go!

He arrived yesterday and soon discovered that two key panelshad the wrong colour veneer – dark instead of light. He made phonecalls. Replacement panels were 153 miles away. I offered to drive there and back to collectthem in my estate car. Hammondsdeclined, saying they would arrange delivery at 8a.m. this morning. He thought the fitting might drag on intoFriday, so we contacted the carpet fitter and put back his appointment from ‘firstcall of the day’ to ‘last call’.

The Hammonds fitter arrived here at 8a.m. The panels arrived at 10:10a.m.! Exactly the same panels as before!!!

So the fitter has put all the component parts in the bedroom and is about to leave –there’s nothing more he can do. We havecancelled the carpet fitter until further notice and may have to pay a latecancellation penalty.

Next week the house will lie empty all day. Our son (it’s his bedroom) will have to makedo in the spare bedroom. No one seems tobe sure when the room will be completed – or even if it will be the samefitter.

Hammond’s attitude is uncaring. Once they have your order, and in particular,your money, they seem to think that so long as you eventually end up with your ‘dreambedroom’ the process can be protracted, chaotic and stressful - it will all be ‘made better’ by theirsuperb product.

That is not the case. Even if the bedroom turns out to be the most amazing one ever, each timeI go to it, I will remember the unnecessary stress and inconvenience we wereput through.

I will not entertain them to install another room – even ifthey offered to do it free of charge!

They advise me that this sort of thing is very rare! The point is – their management of it is sopoor.

1. They should have taken advantage of the extraday – as I advised them to do.

2. They should have taken advantage of my offer todrive to pick up the panels (I would instantly have recognised that they werethe wrong colour)

3. They should have been much more communicativewith us about how they plan to resolve this chaos. They haven’t been in touch AT ALL.

Our advice is to heed the many negative online reviews of thiscompany – they all point to shoddy management – not shoddy goods. Get your bedroom furniture elsewhere!

I will return to write a further review on completion of thework.

P.S. In the interests of fairness, I emailed a copy of thisreview to their customer support team at 12:30. It’s now 3:30 and they haven’t contacted us to apologise… advise what weshould expect as a resolution. Nothing.

bozm1

New build property with wardrobes as an extra. I was initially told that the wardrobes would be fitted by the time I moved in. Then I was told that work could not start until after financial completion. Finally that they would be fitted before I moved in and before completion.
During April I was told that there would be a delay due to a problem with parts and therefore fitting would be after I had moved in.
Beginning of May someone called to measure the room.
An appointment was made for fitting on Monday 28 May. I emptied the room of furniture.
I took a day off work but nobody came. I contacted House Builders at midday and finally got a call from Hammonds at 2pm to say there was still a part missing so the job could not be done. I replaced all furniture.
Hammonds agreed extra hangers in wardrobe by way of compensation.
Further appointment made for Friday 1 June, albeit with the missing part.
2 fitters came on Friday 1pm with no plan or any idea what was to be fitted where. They were unaware of what part they were supposed to be missing.
Fitters left at 8pm for Bank Holiday weekend. My vacuum was used but the room was still left in a total mess as the wardrobe was built on site (in bedroom). There is some damage to walls and every wall and ceiling had to be washed down to remove dust.
Some finishing on wardrobes is poor.
My main concern was the depth of 66cm. This has left little room either side of my standard double bed. I have replaced the curtains with blinds to give a little more room.
I was not given any idea of the size of the wardrobes as I was never contacted at all to discuss this. Had this discussion taken place I would have opted for a standard 60cm depth at the most, probably even going smaller, or to have forward facing hangers.
I contacted House Builders again w/c June 4 regarding the depth of the wardrobe but had no response.
Friday 8 June I had a call from a Hammond’s fitter to say he was calling with the extra hangers. No appointment had been arranged so I was not expecting anyone. I advised that I was waiting for House Builders to respond and asked him not to call.
Monday 18 June I had a call from Hammonds to say someone would visit to ‘have a look what went wrong’ and he would call me back to arrange as he knew I was now back from holiday. Nothing heard from him for a week.
I now sincerely wish that I had arranged my own wardrobes as I feel very unhappy about the whole thing. Clearly Hammond’s communication process is poor if it exists at all. I am very annoyed about taking a day off work for nothing. I cannot understand why measurements were taken and not discussed with me and then my house used to cut the parts to size .

28.06.12 – Man from Hammonds called and agreed that wardrobes are too big. Agreed to reduce to minimum size of 55cm and have rails forward facing.
10.07.12 I emailed as I had heard nothing since the visit. Reply informed me of visit planned for 21.07.12.
I called back to suggest different fitter but ‘too much hassle’ to rearrange.
21.07.12 - returned from weekend away to find reduction from 66cm to 57cm and rails in same place. This despite the signed job sheet(by fitter) stating what had to be done. Room had to be deep cleaned again.
Pathetic service. Feel like ripping it out and leaving in the road as a warning to others on the development!

ricmchale

Its a shame to hear bozm1 and sleeplessinsuffolk have had bad experiences with Hammonds. We had a much better experience by going through the route of starting by visiting the Leamington Spa store and getting everything set in stone before the fitters came to our home. I'm not sure if this is a better approach, but we are happy with the fitting and service. Hammonds weren't the cheapest quote we had, but they ultimately were the design we wanted.

jonese

We ordered fitted bedroom furniture from Hammonds in Jan 2012, for installation 14-15 June 2012 (total cost £5400, we have paid £4536 to date (84%)) of two triple door fitted wardrobes (Verve range), two free-standing bedside tables and one large free-standing chest of drawers.

A few days before the scheduled fitting Hammonds called to say the order was missing 2 wardrobe doors but they insisted on proceeding with the fit, even though we said we would wait until everything was in place (it turns out that they had forgotten to order the 2 doors!). Once the doors were finally ordered we arranged with them for them to be installed on Saturday 28th July. At 5.30pm the night before they left a message saying that the fitter would not be able to make the appointment on the 28th July, no explanation was provided. I (I will point out here they never try to call us to explain) called them on the following Monday and firstly I was told the doors had failed quality control and had been rejected, and later I was informed that they had gone missing – what to believe? Missing doors finally re-ordered and installed 7th Sep 2012, 12 weeks late.

After the initial installation date (14th June) we had raised issued with Hammonds re: the three free-standing units. These were of very poor quality, terrible alignment and glass tops that did not colour match. I was promised numerous times on the telephone that this was all to be rectified, in one visit, on 7th Sep 2012. When the fitter did visit on the 7th Sep he was supposed to finally finish fitting the doors to the wardrobes, replace the glass tops on the free-standing units and correct the terrible alignment of the free-standing units. The fitter only knew about wardrobes, he was completely unaware of all the other issues I was expecting to be resolved at this time, and clearly not best pleased that he was at ours on a Friday evening. During the 3 months from June to Sep Hammonds had repeatedly reassured me that everything necessary had been ordered and that my bedroom project would be completed on the 7th Sep 2012.

After the visit on the 7th Sep I requested that they send someone from Hammonds to assess the furniture and on the 18th Sep a senior technician came out and confirmed the units were sub-standard and that bedside units needed adjusting, large unit needed replacing and that glass tops needed replacing. After a member of their team confirmed the units were sub-standard I returned to Hammonds and asked for them to take the three free-standing units away and refund me to their value (I was satisfied with the fitted wardrobes and said I was happy to pay what I owed for these). They aggressively and flatly refused to refund me saying ‘it was not their policy’ and that I ‘had to allow them reasonable opportunity (they won’t define what this means but I think 4 months is more than reasonable) to rectify the problems’. Interestingly they did offer take the units away and not give me any money !?! - a very interesting policy indeed!

My understanding of the Sale of Goods Act (1979) is that I, the customer, can choose whether I ask for a refund, replacement or repair, it is not for them, the retailer, to insist on any one of the three options. However Hammonds flatly refuse to offer a refund, is this not my legal right? As they insisted they would only rectify the three units I was left being bullied into accepting a further site visit on 13th October 2012 (when I clearly stated this was not how I wished to proceed) for their technician to attempt to rectify the issues with the three units. If I failed to agree to this visit they said they would close my account and demand the remaining 16% I owed them, and if I did not pay they would initiate court action against me.

The 13th October came, no technician appeared between 8-9am as advised. I called the customer service team at 10.30am and was notified that when the technician went to collect the goods on the 12th they failed quality control, hence no visit. However, no one at Hammonds had bothered to communicate this to me (they have four telephone numbers and three email addresses) so I was left waiting in for someone that was never going to show, what a waste of my Saturday. This is a completely unacceptable way to treat customers, especially when I was forced into accepting this visit in the first place! Do they think I don’t have better things to do with my time?

I asked the customer service lady to ensure the Head of Customer Services called me on Monday 15th October as a matter of urgency, it is now 4.30pm and still no-one has called to apologise or explain. I sent another terse email on the 14th Oct clearly stating that I would like a refund for the three free-standing units, stating my rights as a consumer under the Sale of Goods Act, and how they were failing to comply to my legal rights. I have not had a response to this either.

I sent letters, including photographic evidence and copies of the emails and telephone calls I have had with them, to the Head of Customer services and the Managing Director by recorded delivery. I know these were received on 1st October 2012 but I have not received any acknowledgment from Hammonds. I additionally sent details of my experience with Hammonds to BBC Watchdog at the same time, and I received an acknowledgment from them on the 10th Oct. If they can take the time to reply to me why can’t Hammonds?

At this point I am fed up of dealing with Hammonds, their customer service team are aggressive and bully you into accepting decisions that clearly break the law. I don’t understand why they are being so unreasonable. I have said I am happy to pay for the wardrobes, I just want the free-standing units taken away and money returned to cover the cost of them (value ~£2000), I am not asking for a FULL refund of £5400. I just want my bedroom finished, the dream has become a living nightmare. My bedroom has been in disarray since I began decorating it in April 2012, I have belongings distributed over three other rooms and with Hammonds flatly refusing to refund me, when will this end? I have not experienced the ‘stress-free’ process as promised in their glossy brochure and certainly not a bedroom ‘fitted to perfection’. I have additionally failed to experience any of the ‘exceptional quality and a truly personal service’ also promised on their website.

We will soon be instructing a lawyer to act on our behalf and will also be sending a report to the Furniture Ombudsmen.

Do not deal with this company, you have been warned.

spencerdog

I Initially called Ha****s out to measure for new bedroomfurniture, they quoted £14000 then within 20 mins they dropped it down to£11000. I was pretty insulted that they could try it on to quote such a high figure and then dropit so quickly.

A friend of mine recommended that I should try Elegantbedrooms as they have recently had their bedrooms fitted by them, so I did.

The surveyor turned up, (very polite) measured the bedroom,even suggested a much better way of laying out the room that worked muchbetter, showed me a computerised plan, gave me the price that was less thanhalf of what H*****S had quoted and we gave him a deposit there and then.

Three weeks later on the agreed date the fitters turned up,they were nice quite boys, and very polite, they never stopped all day and evenasked me for the hoover at the end of the job so they could hoover up.

My bedroom is gorgeous and I would recommend Elegantbedrooms to anyone!
They are based in Liverpool but Travel all over, the fitters told me that they had just installed in London recently!! great service:money:

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hammonds has asked to give a response to spencerdog. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the forum.

Good morning,

I am very sorry to hear about your recent disappointment with Hammonds.

We take all feedback seriously and we would like to apologise if we in any way insulted you.

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention.
The Hammonds online team

paulyb2008

All the same, but Sharps are lowest priced, but Strachan are by far the most expensive and possibly not the best value. We had Strachan and the workmanship is certainly not of a craftsman, rather a mere installer. we had a tricky loft to deal with, but with a £1000+ premium, I expected quality installation.

However, the paint surface, hinge quality and drawers are as good as new 9 years on. so materials are great, but installers are extremely average at best.

SailingMum

Just looking at the same options. Visited Sharp showroom and the quality of the hinges on the cheaper ranges is very poor - IKEA is much better. We have a very large bedroom and the Sharps comes in at £8000 in their 50% sale. IKEA + local builder to infill and put in new cornices comes to around £3000. I personally think it is only worth paying more if you are going for much better quality bespoke furniture.

e8_pack

Thanks for the responses.

I've just bought a 5 bedroom house and need an office and bedroom furniture - my mother recommended Hammonds in hinckley but she rarely uses the internet and can be a bit short sighted when it comes to the bigger picture.

I can safely say, after the reviews on this forum i'll be kicking Hammonds firmly in to touch - they won't be coming anywhere near my house and i'll print this off so my mother and sister can read it.

Thanks guys.