I ordered a Three Piece Suite from Sofaworks Thurrock Essex on 29/12/2013 to be delivered in approx 16 weeks from the date. I paid the first Deposit of £100.00 on 29/12/2013 + another £200.00 on this same day. On the 28/12/2014 I paid the Full Remaining Payment of £1.641.95. The suite was delivered on 11/03/2014. Within 2 weeks there was a problem with a cushion on the 3 seater Settee and I attempted to contact the Company and eventually got through to express my concern after such a short space of time! On 16/04/2014 a man came and looked at the problem stating that he would "pack" the faulty cushion, but realised in the end that this was not going to work and decided to order 1 Inch foam for under the LHF 3 seat. 8 Weeks later he returned with the replacement cushion. We were told not to "Sit" so long in one particular place and that "We" *must Rotate and change seating every 2 hours because continually sitting in one place will make the cushions collapse* ,which beggars belief really as a Suite is for sitting on and not just for show surely. This time the newly replaced Cushion lasted less than 2 weeks and after attempting to make contact again and awaited their response from Head Office about this issue! By 01/08/14 still no word from them and I decided to go to the Store personally and visited them on 07/01/2015 voiced my concerns and once again I waited with nothing forthcoming at all from this company. I returned to the Store again on 21/01/2015 & was told that I would hear from them before the end of the month which didn't happen. While I was sat in a Hospital waiting room I received a phone call on 09/02/2015 to say that they would send someone on 23/02/2015 not giving a time. The man came and sat on the "Bad" seat and decided there was nothing structurally wrong with the suite ,it's *simply* the fact that it's sat on too long once again. The end result is this Suite is Not Fit for Purpose at less than 1 year old and the only thing the company will do is replace the cushion at my own cost. I have told them I will take this further which I am doing now. We have been told again not to "Sit" in one place too long as this will "degrade" the suite and we have to rotate cushions which we can't rotate because of the suites design. They will replace the Cushion at a fee to me but I am not willing to pay anything more to this company. The Suite is "Not Fit for Purpose" and as you can imagine we are at the end of our tether. The goods are shoddy rubbish.

On 28th May I read an article in SCOOP that at first glance appeared to be rather unimportant. I was wrong. On closer reading, the news article is of serious concern for a variety of reasons. The link is below and in brief, concerns 2,500 letters that were sent to debtors by the enforcement company; Whyte & Co. Crucially, the letters were sent to the debtors in the week before the 'run up to the local and European elections. (more on this further on). One resident complained to the newspaper that the letter arrived on 21st May to advise that the debt had to be paid by the day before (20th May). The letter also 'helpfully' enclosed details of a parking fine 'surgery' that Thurrock Council had hosted a few days earlier. If this was not serious enough....the debt to which the letter referred to was a parking ticket issued by Thurrock Council three years earlier (June 2011) !!! As many regular viewers will know, Whyte & Co were the enforcement company featured so unfavourably by the recent TV series: PARKING MAD. The program exposed the way in which Whyte & Co operate 'Roadside Operations' with the assistance of the police using ANPR equipped vehicles. As the TV programmes confirmed, Whyte & Co were NOT seeking to locate the debtor by using their ANPR equipped vehicles. Instead, they were seeking to find (with the assistance of police) the VEHICLE that had been driven by the debtor on the date of the alleged parking contravention !!! Accordingly, if Thurrock Council is contracting with Whyte & Co to retrieve such historic debts are they also allowing them to use ANPR equipped vehicles to assist with their enforcement? http://www.yourthurrock.com/2014/05/28/vote-winner-thousands-received-bailiff-letters-in-election-week-in-thurrock/