Bought off the internet

[sueham]

I brought a 2 seater and 3 seater settee from a company based in Birmingham. I know a bit silly to buy from the net without seeing. But...… I knew it wouldn't be top quality and to be honest it was all we could afford. To cut a long story short we've had problems within 4 months of buying them. Arms on both sofa's dipped (felt like padding had gone). Company did send one repair man who took photo's of arms. I also pointed out other things that were wrong with both settee's. He took photo's of each bit. Seats on both settee's dipped to one side. Leather sagging on side of 3 seater. About a week later another repair man came and put stuffing into arms on both settee's. I asked about the other repairs and he said they were not on his list. He did in all fairness ring to see if he could repair them, but was told no. I contacted company that I brought these from and said that they hadn't done all the repairs and was told that the report never said anything about other faults. I am so mad as we are on a pension and saved to get these thinking we could at least have this furniture for a few years. But you can't sit in the middle of the seat as it dips to one side on both settee's. I have asked for a full refund as they are not up to the quality they should be. I have read that you shouldn't use an item that is faulty but we have to sit somewhere. What I want to know what else can I do or say to this company. These settee's are faulty so are we entitled to a refund on them. Many thanks for taking the time to read this and sorry it's so long. I do have all the emails and letters sent to them over this

[matrixsteele]

Just write a letter of intent to claim the money back.

you would of paid by card so contact the bank.
you have a right of products and services to be satisfactory, your bank will do checks and do a charge back.

best to get an independent specialist to look over over the sofa and keep a report as evidence.

If you reported the other faults they have a duty to rectify them. Keep a paper trail of all emails etc

[ostell]

When did you buy the furniture?

Have you looked at the Consumer RIghts Act 2015?

[sueham]

Ostell, I brought the furniture in late August 2018. I did have a look at the Consumer RIghts Act and it said that although I have to have a repair and if after that repair another fault was found then I could ask for our money back if within 6 months. But this company have now stopped all communication with us

[Amethyst]

How did you pay for the furniture ?

[sueham]

Amethyst hubby paid by visa debt card via pay pal (we don't have a pay pal account just used the bit where we could pay through Pay Pal)

[ostell]

So you must write to them as soon as possible and state that you are rejecting the furniture under the Consumer Rights Act 2012. Remind them that You have given them the chance to repair and that has not worked. This is just to start the paper trail and get it in writing before the 6 months is up. Send by mail and get a free certificate of postage from a post office to show that a letter was sent to them.

Within 6 months they have to show that the product was not faulty, which would be difficult seeing that they have already attempted repairs. You may have to issue a court claim if they don't respond.

Paying through PayPal can be a problem, which is why they use that method as I believe it removes the right to charge back payments.

[sueham]

Ostell, already written the rejection letter and sent of to be signed for. Oh dear I thought paying through pay pal gave you some rights. Sugar, I've slipped up many times with this.. Thanks for reply

[ostell]

Just to check that you've mentioned CRA 2015 and "reject" in your letter?

[sueham]

Ostell this is the letter I've written. Hopefully it has said what it should.. I have omitted personal details.

Dear Adam,

REFERENCE: Leather 2 & 3 seater settee. Serial number 3611077 & 36110755




After seeking advice on Friday ( 25th January 2019) concerning the ongoing problems with the settee's I have been advised to resend this letter giving the company 14 days plus 2 days which would be 14th February to issue a full refund and make arrangements to have settee's picked up.




I have been advised that pick up will be paid for my Sofasavings as goods are defective with no charge to ourselves.

I purchased the Leather 2 & 3 seater settee. Serial number 3611077 & 36110755 from Sofasavings on the 01 09 2018. Delivery was on the 19th October 2018.

At the point of purchase I paid £829.

The Leather 2 & 3 seater settee. Serial number 3611077 & 36110755 are not of satisfactory quality. Arms on both settee's losing their fullness even after repair. Seats sagging to one side on both settee's. Leather on side of 3 seater wrinkled. Was told the marks on the 2 seater were dust and would be removed with a damp cloth. They are still there.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes it an implied term of the contract I have with Sofasavings that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality.

As you are in breach of contract and I've owned the product for less than 6 months and a previous attempt at repair has also failed, I am within my statutory rights to ask for a full refund of the original cost paid of £829.

I have not attached the photo's again of the problems as they were sent to yourself on 26th January 2019 via email and letter.

From the photo's I am sure you can see the arms of both 2 and 3 seater's are now getting the same problem of losing their fullness, only 4 days after repair. Also attached were photo's of the dipping of the seat on the 2 seater settee. From picture 122912 it can be seen the difference of the gap in between the two seat when sitting on the left hand side and right hand side of settee.

I await confirmation that you will provide the remedy set out above within 14 plus 2 days of the date of this letter.

Failure to pick up and full refund issued into bank account will result in taking the case to the small claims court.

I await your reply to move forward on the issue's stated above

[ostell]

You missed out the reject word but I think you got close enough.

[sueham]

Ostell, sorry when I took off the personal details I took of the heading of Rejection but it was on the letter. Received an email from the supplier whose stating that he is seeking legal advice to this. Now I am getting a little worried, not about the faults as they are there in the photo's I sent them but, about what they will decide.

[ostell]

They don't have to decide, they have already admitted there were faults.

[sueham]

Thanks Ostell, I will wait for their reply

[sueham]

Ostell….I have now received a reply back and it seems that they have turned everything around onto us saying basically we have misused the settee's. I am fuming. I informed them on 2 weeks before Christmas and did report to the technician who first came as I thought he was from the same company as where I had brought the settee's from. Here is there reply below. Please tell me what steps I should do now.

Fri, 15 Feb 2019

Thanks for giving me chance to come back to you. I am slightly confused about your approach with all this. Despite the process being dragged out slightly as it was sent to us when we were closed for Xmas and New Year period I feel that we have done our best to accommodate your complaint and have actually fulfilled what you originally asked us to do. But it seems you have changed your complaint as soon as it has all been rectified for you.

On December 28th at 23.20pm you responded to our customer service email confirming the following:

Sunken arms on settee on both sides.
This was the only complaint about the product at that time.

This normally only happens for any of the the following reasons:

1. customers sitting on arms
2. Using the arm as leverage to get off the sofa which is misuse.
3. Lying across the sofa, using the arm cushion area as cushion for the head. This is misuse as sofas are not designed for this.

For point 1 and 2, I am not saying this applies to you, I just wanted to point out from our past experiences and industry experience we have found this to be the cause.

When a customer just sits on the sofa normally, using the arm cushion as an arm rest, it is impossible for sagging to occur in that way. The sagging in your images runs across the arm cushion, if the arm of the person using the product runs down the cushion heading towards the front of the sofa, the pressure is not applied in a way where the crease can form running across it sideways. Unfortunately for this reason, we cannot offer you a collection and full refund on the item as this is not a manufacturing fault.

Regardless of both my factory and my thoughts on the complaint you had made, we proceeded with helping as we felt that prioritising the customer being happy was most important.

I've had to read through all our correspondence very carefully as your emails/letters later down the line which address we have not completed what was asked, bring up more points that were not originally mentioned.

We spoke via telephone and none of these later points were mentioned just that you was not happy with the condition of the arms. As mentioned above this tends to only happen through something caused at the address but I wanted to ensure you were happy as you had paid a lot of money for the sofas so I confirmed Homeserve would be visiting you to rectify the problem, which they did.

On January 21st 2019 at 20.27 you emailed listing a further 3 points that you was not happy about, that you had not mentioned previously. Detailing that the Homeserve guy had photographed other areas. When the reports came back to the suppliers there was no mention of these issues at all, just details stating the cost to resolve the arms and we decided to agree to authorise that work so the end result would be that you're happy.

On January 26th you emailed us to say you had changed your mind and now you wanted a full refund. As you can imagine when we are trying to be flexible and help with issues of sagging arms that we feel have been caused in the address, it is slightly frustrating for us to complete work based around your request and then to be told after that you want a full refund. Our only focus is to ensure you as the customer is fully satisfied, which is why Homeserve was sent out to deal with the only issue you had reported to us. As far as we are concerned as a business we have been more than reasonable taking the costs involved and rectifying the issue you had presented to us.

We have sold hundreds of this design and never had one issue with sagging arms, our factory sell all over the UK on a much larger scale and they also never have any issues. The first and only issue reported has been sorted and you mentioned after just 4 days it is sagging slightly again.

I'm afraid on this occasion we are not in a position to refund you. The sagging of the arm was the only issue reported, we don't feel this was a manufacturing issue but it was rectified anyway so you was satisfied with the condition of it when the Homeserve repair guy left your address.

If you feel the only way to resolve this is to continue with small claim court proceedings then I will wait for all that information to come through and deal with it accordingly.

If you would like to discuss trying to come to a resolution in another way other than a full refund then feel free to contact me and il be more than happy to see if we can work something out for you so the end result it you are happy.


Many thanks