Rejecting DFS sofa

[DaGuv]

Orderd a sofa from DFS 12 weeks ago and it arrived today. The leather sofa has numerous scuffs on it where the leather has been scraped off somehow. I pointed this out to the delivery guys who said that DFS will send someone out to repair this. He is comming on thursday. I dont want it repaired as I am not happy with the overall quality aswell as the marks. The sofa is on a 4 year interest free aggrement. I would like to reject the sofa and get it collected. Under the sales of goods act I have the right to reject the sofa within a resonable time. I think 24 hours is a resonable time. From reading other stories about DFS I feel i have a battle on my hands. Any advice would be great. Thanks

[Simpo Two]

DaGuv said:

Orderd a sofa from DFS 12 weeks ago and it arrived today. The leather sofa has numerous scuffs on it where the leather has been scraped off somehow. I pointed this out to the delivery guys who said that DFS will send someone out to repair this. He is comming on thursday. I dont want it repaired as I am not happy with the overall quality aswell as the marks. The sofa is on a 4 year interest free aggrement. I would like to reject the sofa and get it collected. Under the sales of goods act I have the right to reject the sofa within a resonable time. I think 24 hours is a resonable time. From reading other stories about DFS I feel i have a battle on my hands. Any advice would be great. Thanks

Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended): 'If goods are not as described or not of a satisfactory quality or not fit for purpose made known at the time of sale by myself or the seller, the contract has been breached and I may be entitled to a repair or replacement or in certain instances to reject the goods and request a refund or partial refund.'

That's the law. If they repair it to 'as new' condition then they've met their obligation; you may be able to get it swapped but it will be the same as what you expected.. which seems to be not good enough (?).

I have a similar thing going on with my Wakemasters Collapsomatic 50, of which they said, after a great deal of battling on my part trying to get a refund:

Wakemasters said:

'you had the mattress for four months prior to finding fault with it. This is part of the reason we cannot refund you fully, and can only offer the options, as stated in our ‘Terms & Conditions’.

We can repair or replace any product which is damaged or faulty in anyway, and only when a repair or replacement is not possible we can offer a refund.

Therefore, as your mattress cannot be repaired we have offered a replacement, which would be like for like, providing you with the same mattress, brand new. The final option we have offered you is a reselection, which gives you the opportunity to go into your local store, and choose an alternative mattress for the same price equivalent to the mattress which you have at the moment. If you wish to purchase a more expensive product then you must make up the price difference, but if you choose a cheaper product, on this occasion as a good will gesture reflecting the problems you have with the mattress, you can choose a cheaper product and we will be able to issue you with a partial refund.'

So if they've met their legal obligations, you can only hope for 'goodwill', and they don't have to give it. Sadly, Wakemasters is owned by Dontgiveastaslongaswevegotyourmoney plc.

[MikeyT]

You should probably have rejected it there and then which you could have done as you spoke to the delivery guys about it ...

Where are the scuffs? In a really noticeable place - or on the back? I think if it is one of those *distressed* looking ones I wouldn't bother - sitting down on it night after night in jeans with rivets will soon get it scuffed anyway - but if it is the smooth type then maybe exercise your rights to reject.

24 hours I would have thought is fine.

First thing I would do is ring (or even better) go to the store where you bought it.

Best of luck.

[hornetrider]

We had scuffs on one arm of our leather 2 seater upon delivery, otherwise we were very happy with the quality of the 3-2-1-footstool that we bought.

But fk me we went through a rigmarole trying to get them to sort it out. Numerous visits by a specialist followed who tried to repair it, then they came round with several bits of replacement leather which didn't match, before they finally sucked it up, came out and replaced the entire arm with a perfect match. It tooka fair few whinging phone calls though.

If there are numerous marks then you can probably reject the lot but be warned they will try and fob you off, so be strong from the start and state you are rejecting it.

[Tampon]

They can recolour the arms and fix it but to be honest you will want to reject it and spend you money else where.

Your biggest problem is you bought on their finance agreement, which will mean they will fob you off between the actual company you have the agreement with ( it isn;t DFS ) and DFS, the finance company will continue to chase you no matter what happens.

Seen this a thousand times and to be honest I don;t envy you, best bet is get going quickley don;t wait for them to send someone round, you aren;t happy with it without the scuffs so push that point and get things going now.

[Pagey]

I had this with DFS.

Noticed scuff marks on one of the sofas (one quite deep) and pointed them out to delivery guys who informed me that I had to take it up with the store. I called the store and was informed that they would send a C/S rep out.

Customer Service turns up the next day has a look and reckons he can fix it at this point I question how he is going to fix it? his response "a bit of wax and some dye"

I politely declined his offer of a repair and commented that I had bought a 'new' sofa not a 'repaired' sofa. He was none to happy and kept trying to convince me that he could repair it and i would never see it I then pointed out that if he intended filling the deep scuff with wax - then surely the wax would wipe away with regular cleaning.
His reply was that if this happened he would come back and do it again.

The long and short of it was, he did not want to replace the sofa. He popped out to his car to make a call to his Manager and came back with a leather care kit and an offer of £100 yet again I declined. At this point he started to get the arse with me and told me that I wouldnt get it replaced and all I would get was a repair and the £100 was a one time offer, blah blah blah.

After 20 mins of me being polite, diplomatic and quite tactful I got the hump a told him to get the F out of my house, take his leather care kit before I was tempted to stick it somewhere upclose and personal, and to relay a message to his Manager to ring me within an hour to arrange a replacement, otherwise I would instruct my credit card co not to honour the payment and that I would personally return the sofa to the store myself and commented that I hoped the automatic doors on the shopfront opened quickly

Upshot is I got a new sofa delivered about 6 weeks later and I kept the damaged sofa for those 6 weeks - well I had to sit on something. Stand your ground with them

Edited by Pagey on Wednesday 27th January 23:43

[DaGuv]

Update - a guy from dfs came out today and said the marks were from been delivered and knocked against the wall. I tend to agree with this. He was very polite etc. He went out to his van and got a kit and it is now looking fine. However I am still not happy with the sofa but how can I reject it and get my money back without a genuine reason???

[hornetrider]

This thread needs pics. However - if you say it now looks fine - do you mean you cannot see any marks and it is now as brand new?

[Simpo Two]

DaGuv said:

Update - a guy from dfs came out today and said the marks were from been delivered and knocked against the wall. I tend to agree with this. He was very polite etc. He went out to his van and got a kit and it is now looking fine. However I am but how can I reject it and get my money back without a genuine reason???

If you have accepted the repair, then legally no. You will be up against their goodwill, and if they're anything like my mattress people, they won't have any.

Why are you 'still not happy with the sofa'?

[DaGuv]

Another update - Mrs came back today and saw it for the first time, she has spotted loads of marks on the sofa where it seems that a really think layer of the top surface has come off. Now that I have noticed it it does look bad under light. I will now ring them for formally reject the sofa and cancel the finance!

[Tampon]

It will be canceling the finance you have most problems with.

[Simpo Two]

DaGuv said:

He went out to his van and got a kit and it is now looking fine.

DaGuv said:

she has spotted loads of marks on the sofa where it seems that a really think layer of the top surface has come off. Now that I have noticed it it does look bad under light.

You're not helping things are you! You've signed off on the repair so you've accepted the offer. To get any further you'll probably have to contact the furniture ombudsman, pay for an independent report and then fight from there. Good luck, I think you'll need it. Those big furniture sheds are like steel traps when it comes to money - but personally I think you have 'buyer's remorse'.

Edited by Simpo Two on Thursday 28th January 18:13

[DaGuv]

buyers remorse?

[Simpo Two]

Well it means that after you've bought it, for some reason you change your mind about it - either because you decide you don't like it any more (as seems here) or a salesman pressured you into buying it when you didn't really want it.

B&Q have a great policy where you can take bits back pretty much for any reason - 'don't need it' is good enough - but furniture isn't liek that - presumably because it's high value and they can't just put it back on the shelf.

You're going to have to think of a good reason why they should take it back - and as you've had it repaired and told them 'Yep that's fine now, thanks' - they've met their legal obligations. As I said before, once you run out of legal stuff to throw, you're dependent on goodwill, and if they say 'no' you've pretty much had it.

[DaGuv]

Update - The sofa now has a general defect, basicaly there is an issue with the leather on one of the cushions where it seems that the leather is alot softer than the rest of the sofa and is wearing really fast even though its a only a week old. Also numerous marks still remain. From looking at the net it seemed that my best course of action was to formally reject the sofa in writing qouting the sales of goods act. I sent this to my local dfs store last thursday. I have made several phone calls to my local store to get their response. Today I got a snotty call from the dept manager saying that because I qouted the sales of goods act in the letter, it has now been passed to the DFS legal team. The manager seemed very cocky, all the other staff I have spoke to were very polite. He said that I should exspect a letter from the legal team by the end of the week. I no I am gonna be drawn into a fight but surely the law is on my side as i have recived shoddy goods and I have rejected it in a resonable time and I will stop using the sofa.

[Frankeh]

Sometimes I wonder if I'll still be around when the DFS sale ends.

[Soovy]

DaGuv said:

Update - The sofa now has a general defect, basicaly there is an issue with the leather on one of the cushions where it seems that the leather is alot softer than the rest of the sofa and is wearing really fast even though its a only a week old. Also numerous marks still remain. From looking at the net it seemed that my best course of action was to formally reject the sofa in writing qouting the sales of goods act. I sent this to my local dfs store last thursday. I have made several phone calls to my local store to get their response. Today I got a snotty call from the dept manager saying that because I qouted the sales of goods act in the letter, it has now been passed to the DFS legal team. The manager seemed very cocky, all the other staff I have spoke to were very polite. He said that I should exspect a letter from the legal team by the end of the week. I no I am gonna be drawn into a fight but surely the law is on my side as i have recived shoddy goods and I have rejected it in a resonable time and I will stop using the sofa.

You bought a cheap sofa from a crap retailer, on credit.

You're acting as if you bought a £20k sofa from Harrods.

[Muzzer]

DaGuv said:

Update - The sofa now has a general defect, basicaly there is an issue with the leather on one of the cushions where it seems that the leather is alot softer than the rest of the sofa and is wearing really fast even though its a only a week old. Also numerous marks still remain. From looking at the net it seemed that my best course of action was to formally reject the sofa in writing qouting the sales of goods act. I sent this to my local dfs store last thursday. I have made several phone calls to my local store to get their response. Today I got a snotty call from the dept manager saying that because I qouted the sales of goods act in the letter, it has now been passed to the DFS legal team. The manager seemed very cocky, all the other staff I have spoke to were very polite. He said that I should exspect a letter from the legal team by the end of the week. I no I am gonna be drawn into a fight but surely the law is on my side as i have recived shoddy goods and I have rejected it in a resonable time and I will stop using the sofa.

The law is on your side in that you can reject the goods but it'll be on their side in that they can have the opportunity to make good.

i.e They can repair the sofa rather than give you your money back.

This will be further re-enforced by your signing cleanly for the goods on delivery and signing for satisfaction on the repair you've already had.

In some ways it's no different to buying a new car - if a panel has a dodgy paint finish the dealer has the opportunity to repair it. They don't have to give you your money back or supply a whole new car. It takes a whole catalogue of faults before you have enough of a case to reject a whole car and get a new one.
The same applies here.

Frankly, even if the sofa is irrepairable, chances are they'll just replace it with a new one that's the same. The chances of you getting a refund are small to nil.

[Simpo Two]

In conclusion, when you buy from a grasping corporate, it's money first, customers second. They don't care that you will be pissed off, because there are 60,000,000 more customers where you came from.

[anonymous-user]

Soovy said:

DaGuv said:

Update - The sofa now has a general defect, basicaly there is an issue with the leather on one of the cushions where it seems that the leather is alot softer than the rest of the sofa and is wearing really fast even though its a only a week old. Also numerous marks still remain. From looking at the net it seemed that my best course of action was to formally reject the sofa in writing qouting the sales of goods act. I sent this to my local dfs store last thursday. I have made several phone calls to my local store to get their response. Today I got a snotty call from the dept manager saying that because I qouted the sales of goods act in the letter, it has now been passed to the DFS legal team. The manager seemed very cocky, all the other staff I have spoke to were very polite. He said that I should exspect a letter from the legal team by the end of the week. I no I am gonna be drawn into a fight but surely the law is on my side as i have recived shoddy goods and I have rejected it in a resonable time and I will stop using the sofa.

You bought a cheap sofa from a crap retailer, on credit.

You're acting as if you bought a £20k sofa from Harrods.

Take a step outside of your golden towers for 5 mins, just because somebody can't afford to shop in the best places it doesn't mean they have to put up with damaged goods. Lower quality yes, damaged no.