Hi,

I'm brand new here but thought I might get some decent advice.

I went into Sofology yesterday evening and picked out a sofa and coffee table with the help of a polite salesperson. The items all have 6 week plus lead times, and as I understand, the sofa actually has to be manufactured first. I was told I had 48 hours to confirm the order after placing it. At the end, right after my credit card payment went through, I was handed a piece of paper and told "cancellations are charged at 30%". Nothing else was explained to me really. At that point I took it to mean that once they start work, i.e. once the order is confirmed, they will charge a cancellation fee - fair enough in my mind.

Today, after reading horrific stories I decided I didn't want to risk doing business with Sofology. I clicked on the link emailed to me to 'confirm your order' and couldn't find an option to not confirm and instead cancel. I called them and was told that, despite literally nothing having being done on my order, and me not actually having confirmed it, they won't allow me to cancel without paying 30% of the order value.

Now, I'm not sure about my rights. This wasn't an online purchase (I wanted to pay later online but was persuaded to pay in store instead), and I'm not sure whether it qualifies as made to order or not (it's made for me I'm told, but I just picked it out of a catalogue, no customisation). Basically, I don't know if I have any rights to cancel or if this is a grey area. The thing is, I wasn't told about the cancellation policy until AFTER I paid, I wasn't given terms and conditions until after I paid either (I wasn't asked to sign anything either). Also, at the time I genuinely understood 'order confirmation' to mean just that - confirming that I want to go ahead with the order.

My credit card company can't help as they say the money first needs to go through (it's still pending) and the supplier needs to be at fault. I'm trying to figure out if they are at fault. In my mind, when you tell a customer they have 48 hours to confirm an order, you can't leave out the no-cancellations-whatsoever policy part (until, conveniently, they've already paid) or you're trading in bad faith.

Anyway, thanks for reading my essay. Any advice would be appreciated.

Nick

Hi.

I am an EX furniture salesmans from a very reputeable company. I can tell you that the tricks that these big furniture companies come up with are bordering illegal. 24 hours is not an unreasonable amount of time to cancel an order, in fact I would imagine upto 14 days would be still ok.

Call there bluff and tell them youare goingto Trading Standards and Citizens Advice and you will challeng this through the courts.

Regards

Bazza

read schedule 1 of the Consumer contracts rges, they are the bit that apply to in store contract and see if everything on the list has been done properly.

As you were given 48 hours to consider then you should have been given a copy of their cancellation and complaint policies.

They are not makde to order in the sense of being bespoke so that is something furniture companies like to fudge a bit. It is like buying a suit in M&S, they dont force you to buy just the one size and say that it fits do they and nor do they cloaim that one they dont have in stock is thus made to measure because you ask for a 34" long leg

Thanks for the advice guys. I've called Citizens Advice, spoke to a really helpful guy. He pretty much confirmed what I thought - there's no clear legal right for me to request a cancellation. However, he suggested that I request a goodwill cancellation because as the consumer I feel the contract wasn't formed properly because I wasn't given the full picture and the information I was given was fuzzy enough to let me believe I had a cancellation window. He did report the issue to Trading Standards though.