AHF furniture - nightmare over a sofa - please help!

Wildsound

Trying to gain an understanding of my legal rights as dealing with this shambolic company is causing my family serious stress, anxiety and inconvenience. Thought I could summarise, but it's too hard as there is a lot of information to explain, but can go into even more detail on your requests:

1) In January this year, we went into an AHF furniture store to purchase a sofa just shy of a grand. This was on 4 year interest free credit deal (given by Barclays)

2) We agreed and we expected the sofa to be delivered in 15 weeks (roughly May)

3) 15 weeks later, we were told there would be a delay. In their terms and conditions it states that if a product is 4 weeks over their delivery estimate, they would agree a £50 offer.

4) They called after this time to state that only half of the sofa had been received at the port and the other half was unaccountable. They said that there could be a potential 4-5 week further delay. At this point we went into the store to vent our frustrations and managed to negotiate £200 off the price.

5) We were given the option to cancel at this point, but given they stated another 5 weeks, and it was a sofa we wanted and if we did cancel, we would likely have to wait a further 14 weeks for another sofa, we didnt accept cancellation.

6) After 5 weeks, we heard nothing from them, so I called only to be told that their system suggested the sofa would be received at the port in mind October (7 weeks away at this point). I asked if they could look into it as a matter of urgency as we were told it would be 4-5 weeks, and get back to me.

7) They never did get back to me.

8) End of October they ring to say the goods are here and ready to be delivered (nearly 10 months later)

9) The delivery men came on the day at the correct time, only to make ad-hoc measurements of the stairs and refused to deliver saying "from our experience it won't go up". They drove off and said "customer services will be in touch in the next couple of days"

10) They never called after 2 weeks

11) Called them to complain about this entire shambles of an experience and wanting it to be cancelled, only to be told from some call centre lackey that they can't cancel the order but could order another product but there would be a surcharge of 30% of the product (i.e. around £250).

12) Went to store to complain further, only to be fobbed off and told that "well cause it's on finance, you don't have to do anything as you haven't actually bought it" or to "go to the ombudsman". The guy supposedly empathises with my situation, but at this point I can't take anything this cowboy company takes serious as they are clearly trying to aggressively retain my business and at my own cost, throwing their "good customer service" out of the window a long time ago...

13) Get home only to find out I can't cancel the finance as that has to be done at AHF's request. Also I can't go to the ombudsman as I haven't gone through their complaints procedure, to which there is no mention of it in any of my paperwork.

14) Write a formal complaint and send it to them by both post and email, stating the above and that a resolution that if they cancelled the order, then no further action would be taken by me.

15) They come back to me on the phone the next day saying that they can't cancel the order as they do not consider to be in breach of contract, but as a gesture of goodwill they would cancel the 30% surcharge. I stated that I do not accept these terms and I would consider my options.

16) They sent me an email covering the above and that the surcharge would be cancelled and that I could select an alternative product (with no indication that it would have to be anything in particular or at any particular price).

17) I went into store, found a nice side table in the sales for £20, showed them the email and said, I agree to this formal contract, would like to pay in cash for this table therefore the finance is no longer needed and could you please cancel it. They said "I don't interpret the email the same way and refused to take my acceptance.

The only options I seem to have now is to go to the furniture ombudsman (which from reading about it online, doesn't seem too independent and seem to side with the retailer most of the time) or to take them to court, making this nightmare continue and it increasing time and money to me...

Can anyone help me or guide me in what I should be doing, what my rights are etc? I am sick to death of this disgusting company and how it has treated me over the last year of my life and I want this to end. The people on this site have always been helpful (as I try to be to others) so your help is always tremendously received.

Also, if anyone has any other forums away from this site which could be more useful, please let me know.

Kind regards
Wild

pinkshoes

Did you check the dimensions and check whether it would fit before ordering?

This would be your responsibility, so if you didn't and it doesn't fit then they are being very nice giving you the option choose something that will fit.

Could you take a window out to fit it in?

tacpot12

I think your problems started at 11) when you seem to have accepted the fact that the sofa will not fit into your property via normal means of delivery.

Prior to 11) you have accepted their offers of redress.

You might need to check your contract to see if it states who is responsible when furniture cannot be delivered. If it was their responsibility, you could ask them to reattempt delivery with different equipment. If it was your responsibility, I don't know what happens then. Perhaps someone else will be able to advise.

Wildsound

It would fit inside the room assembled I had measured them, same with the doors. The fact that I had managed to get my current 3 seater sofa (in one piece) up the stairs before, albeit it was not easy, was a key reason, given I was advised at the outset that the sofa would come in several pieces and would be assembled on delivery. If I knew it was going to come in one piece (or as on the day, two pieces) then I would not have ordered it.

I feel misled from point 5 as, had I have known it was going to take another 4 and a half months to arrive at that point, I would have cancelled it.

pinkshoes

Wildsound wrote: »

It would fit inside the room assembled I had measured them, same with the doors. The fact that I had managed to get my current 3 seater sofa (in one piece) up the stairs before, albeit it was not easy, was a key reason, given I was advised at the outset that the sofa would come in several pieces and would be assembled on delivery. If I knew it was going to come in one piece (or as on the day, two pieces) then I would not have ordered it.

I feel misled from point 5 as, had I have known it was going to take another 4 and a half months to arrive at that point, I would have cancelled it.

If you had included this line in your original post then that would have helped.

The sofa is not as described as you were told it came in pieces to be assembled in the room.

They need to cancel the finance as they cannot supply what you have paid for.

Does any of your paperwork indicate it is to be assembled on site?

tacpot12

If it can be assembled in the room, it can be disassembled outside of the room and reassembled inside it. This should be a simple job for the store to arrange.

I think you could use the argument that the delivery men removed the sofa before you had chance to think about whether you could disassemble the sofa and reassemble it inside.