DFS not honouring sofa warranty

Shawy_1991

Afternoon. 

I was hoping for some advice. My elderly parents have bought a sofa from DFS, Electric recliner. Unfortunately after a few months the electrics went faulty. Stopping the mechanical workings. 

Upon sale they tried to sell the sofa as seen with no warranty. However my dad being the Yorkshire man he is, “no warranty, no sale”. The sale was agreed, with warranty.  

Upon calling with the fault DFS sent and engineer out who has ripped open the bottom of the sofa and got one of the two sides working again. He left the property to order a part for the opposite side. A few weeks passed and my parents chased this pending repair. Only to be called liars and the sofa wasn’t under warranty. 

Many phone calls later I’ve tried to help my parents with this issue as it’s adding to much stress. Looking at the sales document/ contract. There is no written agreement of addendums or notes to the standard 15years structural and 2 years stitch and electrical warranty. 

I raised this issue with DFS customer service who have then sent me back to the store. The store has now rang me and changed the story and circumstances several times. When challenged about changing what has been said to what he actually stated. “I was trying to trip him up”. If he wasn’t constantly lying he wouldn’t be getting tripped up. 

I have spoke to 2 DFS representatives who say there is no reason the warranty should apply……. 

Please can anyone advise ? 

Thank you in advance 

Slinky

I think you want to look at challenging them under SADFART - the Reasonable length of Time part. See this article https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange/

PHK

Is this a shop floor/display model or a customer return?

Keu

Shawy_1991 said:

Afternoon. 

I was hoping for some advice. My elderly parents have bought a sofa from DFS, Electric recliner. Unfortunately after a few months the electrics went faulty. Stopping the mechanical workings. 

Upon sale they tried to sell the sofa as seen with no warranty. However my dad being the Yorkshire man he is, “no warranty, no sale”. The sale was agreed, with warranty.  

Upon calling with the fault DFS sent and engineer out who has ripped open the bottom of the sofa and got one of the two sides working again. He left the property to order a part for the opposite side. A few weeks passed and my parents chased this pending repair. Only to be called liars and the sofa wasn’t under warranty. 

Many phone calls later I’ve tried to help my parents with this issue as it’s adding to much stress. Looking at the sales document/ contract. There is no written agreement of addendums or notes to the standard 15years structural and 2 years stitch and electrical warranty. 

I raised this issue with DFS customer service who have then sent me back to the store. The store has now rang me and changed the story and circumstances several times. When challenged about changing what has been said to what he actually stated. “I was trying to trip him up”. If he wasn’t constantly lying he wouldn’t be getting tripped up. 

I have spoke to 2 DFS representatives who say there is no reason the warranty should apply……. 

Please can anyone advise ? 

Thank you in advance 

Did you ever see one of those signs, "THIS DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR STATUTORY RIGHTS"

You do not need a warranty, a warranty is only something that a company offers to make themselves look good and to con people into thinking that this is the limit to their liability.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 *CRA) says that products must 

Be fit for purpose
Last a reasonable period of time
Of reasonable quality
As described 

This applies to ALL goods sold, there is no such thing as "sold as seen" in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and it applied to whatever a trader is selling, for example 2nd hand cars for a car dealer or showroom furniture as DFS.

No company can override the law, any term to the contrary to this law is voided as an unfair contract term.

Typically the liability runs for 6 years but if during the sale a longer life is implied then that becomes the expected life of the product. 

For example when I bought a fridge freezer I asked the rep in JL what the warranty was, they said all their products come with 2 years warranty. I said "are these as reliable as they say, is it worth paying the extra money for this brand".  He kicked in with X provide an 8 year warranty on parts including the condenser and only charge for labour.  That implied that the reasonable time it should last was 8 years and I used that when the fridge freezer failed.

You said 

. "after a few months the electrics went faulty"

How many months?

There are three time stages when it comes to defective goods

First 30 days - Customer can invoke the short term right to reject
day 31 to 180 - Seller to prove
day 181 to 6 years or implied longer term - Customer to prove

So in the first 30 days if a product is genuinely faulty you can reject the goods under the short term right to reject element of the CRA, you can decline any offer to repair as long as you can establish that the product is faulty. The seller will always try to push you to accept a repair, they will offer to send an engineer but these should be rejected. During this period the onus is on the customer to prove it is faulty.

In days 31 to 180 the seller must prove the misuse by the customer if they will not provide a remedy, after day 180 (6 months) it is up to the customer to prove that their is a manufactures defect.  However, if they get a report from an independent qualified engineer and have to pay them £150 for the report that says that there is nothing the customer has done to cause the defect (for example the motor is not capable of carrying the load or the sofa has not been assembled properly leading to extra strain on the motor), then DFS would not only be liable for the repair/replacement but also the cost of the independent report.

Now the starting point with any dispute is to contact the data protection officer not the sales people, the DFS privacy policy says 

"If you have any questions or concerns with how DFS process your personal information please do not hesitate to contact us via our website or by email contactus@dfs.co.uk"

So he can use the ICO page to make the subject access request but do not say why just ask for all data they hold on him including documents, emails to from or about me, any notes relating to me in your systems and phone recordings as well as any invoices and/or sales dockets.  You want it to look like just another request.

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/make-a-subject-access-request/

So this gives you a copy of the phone calls where you say they kept tripping up, the emails may also bring to light some important information that may help you in Court (although it won't get that far, you are just lining up your ducks).

Once you have the data he contacts the company BY EMAIL or in WRITING (keeping a copy).

if your father is beyond the two years warranty he would say

"I have taken legal advice and am pleased to confirm that you are absolutely right;  there is no reason the warranty should apply because l am covered by the Consumer RIghts Act 2015"

"You now have a choice, either you promptly repair the sofa or I will pay for an independent 3rd party to write a report and I will take you to the small claims court to recover my losses in rectifying the fault."

If the it is past 6 months he would say virtually the same

"I have taken legal advice and am am assured that it does not matter about the warranty because l am covered by the Consumer RIghts Act 2015"

"You now have a choice, either you promptly repair the sofa or I will pay for an independent 3rd party to write a report and I will take you to the small claims court to recover my losses in rectifying the fault."

If it is under 6 months he would say 

"I have taken legal advice and been advised that I am covered by the Consumer RIghts Act 2015, you cannot contract out of your obligations under this Act.  You have never alleged any misuse and nor has there been any, I simply push a button to raise the recline function and another button to lower the recline function.  

"You now have a choice, either you promptly repair the sofa or I will pay for an independent 3rd party to write a report and I will take you to the small claims court to recover my losses in rectifying the fault."

Note they may want to send an engineer again or to send an independent engineer, but you need to check that any independent engineer is truly independent of them, so if they are retained by DFS they are not independent.  Also have your phone on audio record from the moment they come to the door and put it on Do Not Disturb so no phone calls interrupt it.

Your options for the remedy are to give them the opportunity to repair the sofa, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 also says that consumers should not be inconvenienced, so if they make him wait an unreasonable time then say "fine but I will have to claim my out of pocket expenses to hire another sofa if you do not repair it promptly".

These engineers are notorious for saying one thing to the customer but get pressured by their management to put something different, having a recording of your dad asking "do you get to fix a lot of these" then when they have answered he asks "what do you think caused it to fail after such a short period of time" then let the engineer sing.  In fact say nothing if they do not reply so it is uncomfortable for them and after they say "these motors are not as good as they used to be" say "really, have you noticed that".

In the event that they say the sofa is beyond economic repair then your dad should ask for a full refund just to set the bar high.

Now nobody would pay thousands for a sofa that failed after 3 months, 6 months or even 2 years.  They imply in their warranty that people keep sofas for 15 years and even if they do not warrant the electrics for more than 2 years nobody would buy a sofa with a recliner if they were told it would only last 2 years. 

Even if they allege it was used in the showroom, it does not change the fact that they were obliged to sell a product that was fit for purpose and would last for a reasonable period of time.  The period of time can be subjective based on the cost, i.e. a Rolls Royce would be expected to last longer than a Nissan but this really goes to lengthening the time not shortening it.  The minimum I would ever settle on is 6 years because of the limitations act 1980, but in your dad's case I would negotiate from the 15 years and settle in the middle depending on how much he paid.

Also they rotate the stock all the time and selling showroom models is just a sales tactic.

The reason this is important is because in the event that they say it can't be repaired you calculate your refund on the basis of the anticipated life of the product, less the use he had.  So if he paid £6000 and reasonably expected the product to last 15 years then you would take 15 years x 12 months is 180 months, so you divide the £6000 by 180 and that gives £33.33 a month. So if he had 5 months use then he had £166.66 of use and could demand a refund of £6000 less £166.66 so £5833.33.   

If he paid £6000 and reasonably expected the product to last 10 years considering they imply their sofas last 15 years then you would take 10 years x 12 months is 120 months, so you divide the £6000 by 120 and that gives £50 a month. So if he had 5 months use then he had £250 of use and could demand a refund of £6000 less £250 so £5750.  

Even if he caved in to expect the product to last just 6 years then you would take 6 years x 12 months is 72 months, so you divide the £6000 by 72 and that gives £83.33 a month. So if he had 5 months use then he had £500 of use and could demand a refund of £6000 less £416.66 so £5583.33.

So start with the Subject Access Request as big companies often "lose" recordings once they realise a recording show them up, but if you contact the data protection staff directly they often take their job more seriously and just provide the data.  Don't skip this step because if you do have to go to Court and can show them not being truthful then the Judge is likely to take that into consideration when making her decision.