Laura Ashley Sofa

[horseshoes]

I bought a leather sofa from Laura Ashley recently, and they were very efficient in informing me of delivery times etc, but alas when it was delivered today two legs were badly broken and the packaging bady ripped so obviosly damaged in transit. I refused to sign for it and off it went back to Laura Ashley. I enquired at the store where I bought it regarding replacement or reaired return, and they said I had to phone customer service, which I did, and the young lady there kept repeating over and over that they could only apologise and would put priority on it! I said I wasn't at all happy as we have completely refurbished, the carpet fitter was here last night until 10.00 and my old furniture sold, so now we have NOTHING to sit on. All I wanted was a loan of a sofa or chairs until mine is returned. She arranged for the manager to phone me which she did. I suggested that if they couldn't lend us something, perhaps we could buy an ex-display chair or sofa (we have only bought one sofa and were going to buy either a chair or sofa when I saved some more to do so - we originally had 2 sofas). Now it appears that we won't have our sofa for at least 2 weeks (the staff are on holiday). Is it acceptable that we have no seating for probably over 2 weeks. Also they obviosuly have our £1300. How do you suggest I proceed? I'm grateful or help.

[joko]

i dont know about legalities, but perhaps you could, just for your own comfort, buy some inflatable ones and then present them with the bill?

at least youd have somewhere to sit for 2 weeks

[horseshoes]

Good one joko :-)

[AlBags]

Very inconvenient .. I must say. But I have known this with LA before.
I sometimes wonder if there is a scam going on with some of these delivery people. I mean .. to break two legs, it practically has to be in a crash or fall off the back of the lorry! Maybe they keep them?!
Not much you can do. If you insist, you "might" get some special treatment or further discount from them.

[horseshoes]

. I think it's appalling that they are so blase about it. "We're very sorry you haven't got anything to sit on, but you'll just have to wait".. definitely won't be shopping with them again! I definitely think we should have a discount especially as my £1300 is in their account and not mine!

[Bettypat]

I would ask for my money back and tell them that I am rejecting the goods. I would not accept repaired goods when I had paid for new. From somewhere like Furniture 123 you can usually get delivery within a day or two, and the goods usually arrive in perfect condition.

[DjsM]

Theoretically they have breached the contract but going down that route would probably lead you nowhere. The best route would have been to make use of the Sale of Goods Act 1979- which states that goods must be in satisfactory condition. Breaking this implied term of a contract means you can terminate it, and this would mean giving the sofa back and getting your money back. Seeing as you didn't actually take the goods and have accepted another lot, this is unlikely to work now. If you have persistence though personally I would mention these facts about the SGA 1979 to store, stating that you will be informing the Office of Fair Trading if they don't come up with a solution quickly. Thanks to the rather generous EU legislation 'Unfair terms in consumer contract regulations 1999' the Office of Fair Trading can now take a case on for you, threatening rather large penalties for non compliance, and taking companies to court on your behalf if needs be. As you can imagine, this is rather persuasive for companies to comply with orders. Another positive is that it means it can go to court without potentially large fees for yourself!

[vhenderson]

I have a similar problem with Laura Ashley delivering a sofa which was damaged in transit and which we could not accept. Because we live in a cottage we had to have our bow window removed in order to facilitate the sofa and we had a chairty collect our old furniture that morning. They have had a £1,000.00 of our money for over two months and now we have nothing to sit on. Their customer care is abysmal with people promising to get back to me with an answer and not hearing a thing. So on Monday we will have to go to our nearest store and stage a sit in until we get a response.