Bensons for Beds - FIRA and expensive mattress failure

michieluc

I bought a bed and mattress from Bensons for Beds in March this year. The bed was around £500 (Ottoman bed) and the IGel mattress king size was nearly £1200.

The mattress is terrible. Firstly IGel is supposed to control temperature - however the bed is very very warm and not at all temp controlled.

However, my main issue is that the top layer of the mattress is coming away from the rest of the mattress in places - and becoming lumpy and difficult to sleep on.

I contact Bensons who finally sent a FIRA technician this weekend. On speaking to him, he agreed there is something wrong with the mattress although couldn't tell me what. He did say that he had seen it before. His report says this
Action Description - I have inspected the mattress to find the top layer of memory foam seems to have come away from the layers underneath it. This has caused a lumpy affect to the top of the mattress. This has happened in one area of the mattress & is not a characteristic of the other areas of the mattress.

I have just received the conclusion from FIRA who say "On inspection of your furniture the technician found no manufacturing or material faults - you can see more details about their findings in the report that we've attached here.

As there's no fault with your product, there's no need to take any further action at the moment, but if you feel that something changes within the next few months please contact Bensons for Beds Customer Services on 0330 124 1100.

I am not happy with this - and the mattress is not as it should be. In six months it has deteriorated to a really bad degree and I don't expect to pay over £1000 for something that will continue to deteriorate. I understood that there is a guarantee on the mattress.

What should I do? Help please?

Fosterdog

How did you pay for it?

IAmWales

Have you contacted FIRA to ask them to explain how their conclusion contradicts the technician's report? It could be that they're stating the fault is not inherent, in which case you would need to get a report stating otherwise.

I found FIRA to be fair when I had a fault with a sofa. I would initially give them a call for clarification.

shaun_from_Africa

From my dealing with FIRA, I found them to be so heavily biased in favour of the retailer that it was pointless letting them do an "independent" inspection.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=70841025&postcount=14

Basically, it was to do with some furniture that didn't have the fire proofing labels attached in accordance with the legal requirements (they were held on with a couple of plastic tags and not sewn or firmly attached by bonding), yet the FIRA report stated
"Lables are adequate fir furniture in question" (that is the exact wording and spelling used on the report).

askmeaboutsofas

I take it the FIRA technician was booked by the retailer? Some of these inspection companies are truly independent, but FIRA actually advertise to retailers on the basis that they'll reduce the number of returns the retailers get... I leave it to you to guess how they do that! What you'll want to do is book your own inspection from a company that has no connection to the company you bought from. Castellan, or Homeserve Furniture Repairs come to mind. Contact one of them and they'll send a technician out who will produce a report for you for £90-£120 approx. If the report shows it's a fault that's not the result of misuse you should be able to claim the cost of the inspection back from the retailer as well.
If you paid with a credit card or by finance, you'll be able to use this evidence as part of a section 75 claim.

Greta_Sharbo

Echo the above, often these technician will know what the outcome will be before they even visit you however they are never going to tell you whilst they are in your house that you are going to be blamed. The easy solution is to make it sound like they agree with you but submit a report that says whatever they have been told to make it say.