AN OPEN LETTER OF COMPLAINT
DATE: 20 December 2001
SUBMITTED TO TCCL: 8 January 2002
Dear Mr. Bensley (of DFS).
In March of this year we had delivered a suite in the BIBA range
which we had recently purchased from DFS Milton Keynes store,
consisting of 2 single seats, a foot stool and a three seater
settee. After only a few weeks, both of the chairs started to
fall apart.
I phoned up MK branch and they agreed to send over an assessor.
On his arrival he agreed that the suite was faulty and condemned
it. Just over two months later the suite was replaced. In just
a few weeks, the cushions started to come apart at the seems.
I phoned the store and again they sent out an assessor.
The assessor came and decided he would have to take one cushions
away to be mended. Whilst your representative was there, we told
him about the problems we were having with plumping the arms and
cushions to keep their shape, ie. it wasn't working. Your representative
had a go and yes he did succeed in making the arms look a little
better but it did however take him about 1 ½ hrs. to do
it, and the next day we were back where we started.
That night the assessor turned up at 11.30pm with the repaired
cushion. The next day I phoned your representative directly about
the cushioning, and he told me that was the problem with having
hollow fibre suites. I'm sorry but my idea of buying a suite is
so you have somewhere to RELAX and not to have something that
would give you 1 ½ hrs.more work to do each day. Yet again
within a matter of weeks, the suite had started to become unstable
and falling apart at the same place as before.
I again phoned the MK store and again they sent out an engineer.
Once again he said the suite would have to be condemned.
Enough is enough, there is obviously a design fault with the
suite, so I asked the manager at the MK store what he could do
to resolve the problem. I explained to him that exchanging the
suite again was not good enough. He finally came back and said
we could choose another suite from the store to the same value
as the one we bought.
Over the next couple of months, we made numerous visits to the
store, at a cost to ourselves but were unable to find anything
in the price range. We finally found a suite in the Sultan range
but it was £600.00 dearer, I asked the manager if there
was anything we could do on the price. I realised getting the
full amount of difference off was expecting too much, but I thought
we might be able to come to some agreement.
The manager was adamant that he could not budge from the price,
not even a penny to compensate us for our inconvenience. I then
asked for a refund and he told me that he could not do that either.
I was a bit concerned so I phoned up the Department of Fair Trading
and asked for their advice. They told me that I would be entitled
to a full refund by law being as the suite was "not sufficient
for the job it was designed for" and that DFS as a store
had technically admitted to this being as they had condemned the
suite twice for the same fault.
Again I phoned up the manager and told him they we were obviously
not going to get anywhere and could we have a full refund. He
was very reluctant to do this and finally convinced me to come
back to the store and try again to see if we could find another
suite. We did this and found a suite which, although still being
dearer than the original one we bought, was much closer as it
was only £100.00 dearer. Still trying to get something for
our inconvenience I told the manager ( Simon ) that I would pay
the £100.00 difference if DFS would cover the cost of the
stain guard which would be about £140.00. He told me that
there was no way that he could do that.
On that point I asked for the name of his superior which I am
hoping is you. Later that afternoon, the manager, ( Simon ) phoned
my wife and explained that DFS would pay for the stain guarding
but I could not have the guarantee. I feel that due to the way
we have been treated and they way the manager was so adamant there
was nothing he could do, I find hard to believe that the suite
would have any guarding done at all, and if it did, why could
we not have the guarantee. I cannot believe that DFS as Company,
would be prepared to cause the bad feeling and press this incident
could create, for less than £150.00. I would be grateful
to hear your comments on this matter and if there is any solution
you can think of to resolve this situation.
Yours a very disatisfied customer
Mr.C. Probert
