Harveys bedroom furniture and 3 piece suite debacle

[Wiggle74]

I feel compelled to tell people about the experience I have had with Harveys furniture store and what has now become a laughable amount of problems.

I’ve read through a few posts people have made on a this web site and others and although other people have legitimate issues ours seem to be the equivalent of everyone elses combined! So be prepared, this is not going to be a short post.

 

In May 2006 I placed an order for a 3 seater, 2 seater and single seater chair in Harveys Jasmine range from the Lakeside store. The total value of this was £2677.

At the same time I placed an order for items in the Sienna bedroom furniture range. These items were 2 bedside cabinets, a 5 drawer chest, a 6 drawer chest and a wardrobe for which I also ordered 2 additional shelves. The cost of the Sienna range was £2320.

 

With extra 5 year cover on the sofas etc and a bit of discount the total charged was £5000. At this time I decided to take advantage of a finance offer as I was about to buy my first house and additional cash available was much needed on other things.

I put a £500 deposit down leaving £4500 to be paid.

 

To cut a long story short, I was refused finance but it was agreed that my granddad could take out the finance in his name for us (thanks Poppa!) at his “local” branch in Truro, Cornwall. So he drove the 20 miles to the store, signed all the papers and we awaited delivery of our furniture on the day we moved into our new house in August 2006.

After much chasing around by myself to the Lakeside branch contacting a person called Marion who was extremely helpful she explained that they had not been given the go ahead on the finance as the paper work had not been completed. It turns out that somewhere along the way the truro branch lost the forms and neither of the copy sent to head office or the lakeside branch ever reached their destinations. This resulted in my granddad having to drive again down to Truro to sign ANOTHER set of papers. This process and chasing up and the realization that no one actually knew where the papers required were took 2-3 weeks.

 

 

A week prior to moving house and receiving the goods I received a phone call whilst at work saying that my furniture was all ready for delivery and I was required to pay the outstanding balance. After all the hassles of chasing the finance papers this seemed unbelievable. I called Marion and it was not until the day before we moved house that it the goods could be approved for delivery due to this mix up somewhere in the finance dept.

 

The day came for everything to be delivered (amongst many kitchen goods and us moving house aswell!).

The goods were delivered separately as the Sienna bedroom furniture comes not direct from Harveys but from a company called Elite Style in Italy who have English distributers.

The Sienna range came ready assembled apart from the huge wardrobe. The delivery men’s first comment was that the wardrobe would not fit where I had planned. I disagreed with this as I measure and produce floor plans of buildings for a living and would not have made a mistake. I eventually convinced him to bring the base of the wardrobe and test if it would fit. Naturally it fitted and the guys had to spend about 3 hours assembling the wardrobe. It is my impression that they simply were looking for a reason not to have to build the wardrobe because I had not packed the kettle conveniantly and could not offer them a cuppa!

Unfortunately the 2 additional shelves that had been delivered did not fit because they were too small and could not be mounted where designed for.

 

The Jasmine suite arrived and the delivery men said although it would be tight, they would be able to get it in through the front door, through the hall and into the lounge where I wanted it. At no time did they ask my permission to remove the packaging and force the furniture through the hallway. To do this they had to remove the door handle to the downstairs loo. Obviously I had other things going on at the time and just left the guys to it. When finished they asked me to sign the delivery note. I asked why there was only a 2 seater and 3 seater and no single chair in the lounge yet. They forgot to bring this in and so went back to the van and brought it through to the lounge but could not be bothered to remove the door handle for just a single chair.

In bringing the chair in they proceeded to damage it on the door handle. Our door frame had also been damaged by forcing one of the items through it.

 

We noticed that the drawers on both the 5 and 6 drawer chests did not line up properly. Some of the drawers stuck out by as much as 20mm from ones adjacent to them which meant the finished look of the pieces was awful and nothing like the high standard of what we saw in the store as an example.

The next day I called Marion at Harveys in Lakeside and explained the problem. Replacement shelves were ordered for the wardrobe and an appointment was arranged for someone to come and inspect the chair from “Homeserve” who would then pass their recommendation on to Harveys.

 

For risk of this becoming a piece of writing to rival War and Peace I will shorten the story somewhat.

I took a day off work for someone from homeserve to come and inspect the jasmine chair. He agreed it was beyond repair and Marion later confirmed a replacement chair would be delivered.

When this chair arrived on 24th November it was a totally different colour to our existing 2 and 3 seaters. Not just a different shade, but a totally different colour and the leather had a far superior feel and appearance. This made us realize that the original furniture delivered was in fact not the brown colour we had ordered but a redish brown instead

After another half day off work and a visit from homeserve and many phone calls during work to Harveys a complete replacement suite was ordered in the CORRECT colour.

 

In March 2007 a correct replacement suite was finally delivered. Unfortunately the delivery driver recommended that he would not be able to get the items safely through the hall and into the lounge with the packaging still on it. Removing the packaging would leave the furniture liable to being damaged and this could not be done with out me signing a form waving my right to claim if it was damaged.

As annoying as this was I appreciated the professionalism shown and contacted the Harveys store to see how to proceed. It was agreed that the furniture would be delivered on a different day with it being dismantled at the wharehouse and reassembled in my house.

 

A week or two later I contacted Harveys to see how things were progressing and was told that the suite which was sent to our house and not taken inside was still to be the one sent to me. Unfortunately some damage had occurred during transit or in the wharehouse and would require someone from Homeserve to go and inspect it and see if it was repairable. I was told later that this had been repaired and the mark could not be seen. This unfortunately was a case of Chinese whispers as I discovered today (10 May 2007) when the suite was finally delivered.

The mark is still very much noticeable and as such even though Harveys knew it, the item sent to me was not in a perfect as new condition as should be expected after all the problems we have had.

Today our floor was damaged aswell when the old suite was removed. One of the chunky wooden feet to a deeply scratched our wooden floor and also a piece of the 3 piece sofa has not been attached tightly in the same way that it has on the other 2 items.

This is now more than 1 year after the order was placed and I still do not have a suite as required in acceptable condition.

 

 

Well, that’s the sofa saga explained. The frightening thing is that has been a lot smoother and less problems than the Sienna bedroom range.

I shall explain that in a post below!

 

 

By the time I have finished writing about that it will probably be next week already, so I post this now.

 

Remember if you are kind enough to have read this far and offer feedback and advice that durring all this there was also many problems with the Sienna bedroom range aswell as explained below.

[Wiggle74]

Contd from above….

 

On the day of original delivery the people from Elite style scratched the wall and tore the wall paper in places as they lifted the furniture up the stairs. Having only just moved into the house that same day I could not be 100% sure it was not already there.

 

To recap from above, the 5 and the 6 drawer chests were all out of alignment at the front and needed to be replaced. The shelves for the wardrobe would not fit and we also came to realize that one of the doors on the wardrobe would not sit properly on its runner and as a result would always start to roll shut when opened. As this is a heavy door it was painful and a lot of strain for my pregnant partner to use.

 

Going to cut things down now to the bare minimum facts.

 

-8 August Furniture delivered and built. A whole room full of discarded cardboard and bubble wrap from the bedroom furniture. Surely this should have been removed from our property?

-9 August problems with 5,6 draw chests and wardrobe reported to Harveys

-15 August 2006 wrong size replacement shelves delivered

-13 October 2006 wrong size replacement shelves delivered to me at work. Because the shelves had been sent to the wrong depot and would not deliver the extra 5 miles up the road to my house as it was not in their area.

-10 November 2006 Homeserve visit to inspect drawers and agree they need replacing.

-6 December 2006 wrong size replacement shelves delivered (Well, 1 was correct, the other was wrong-how does this happen?!) Delivery man tried to fix wardrobe door by doing something to it with his screwdriver. He blames our floor for not being level, even though only 1 door slides incorrectly, the other is fine. In fact, he made the door even worse somehow.

We were subsequently told by someone from Homeserve that nothing could be done by poking around with a screwdiver and also that the wardrobe had been built incorrectly and the problem was not with the floor.

-Early 2007 at the FIFTH attempt the final correct shelf was delivered.

-Not sure of the dates off hand but we are on our 4th 6 drawer chest even though our current one and previous one were supposed to have been inspected by Elite Style prior to being sent to us. The area manager even visited our house to check that the item was actually faulty and we were not just being picky. Our current one is actually worse than the one he inspected as 3 out of 6 drawers hit the side of the unit as they are closed. Over time this would damage the unit.

-Currently on our 3rd 5 drawer chest (one delivery they forgot to load it onto the van and just brought the replacement 6 drawer). The top drawer on this does not run smoothly even though it is on runners with wheels. None of the other drawers have done this but because we are so fed up with Elite Style we don’t expect we could get any better from them.

-On one of the deliveries a picture was knocked off the wall and fell down the stairs breaking the frame. The cost is only about £20 or so, but this was a beautiful photo my sister took and gave me as a Christmas present and posted it to me from where she lives in America.

 

 

We have had enough of Elite Style now and their sub standard grossly over priced furniture.

 

 

We are awaiting the Harveys store manager to get back to us with a final offer to resolve this situation. The only 2 options I have given him is for us to be given an acceptable replacement 6 drawer chest and 50% refund against the price of the Sienna furniture or a complete refund and they collect the goods.

 

With the sofas we are not happy to accept the 3 seater in it’s current state mainly because out 6 month old will soon be exploring everything with his tiny hands hand because part of the sofa has not been reassembled tightly enough there is a gap of aprox 2cm which he could catch his fingers in at a very low level. Also I am not happy that they sent us a sofa they knew in advance was not actually acceptable and had faults. I would have thought that given everything that had happened they would have sorted this prior to delivery.

 

I am not sure what to do about the sofas and the problems which still exist with this. There is no guarantee a replacement would be any better, plus it would have to be all 3 items replaced so that the colour of the leather matched perfectly. Not to mention it would have to be taken apart and reassembled again.

 

Below is a summary of what I want Harveys to consider when proposing a final solution to me.

 

 

-Losing the finance documents resulting in my 75 year old granddad having to drive a 40 mile round trip to resign papers.

-Damage to door frame of house

-Damage to floor in lounge

-Damage to picture frame

-I have had to take 6.5 days off work for deliveries and visits of Homeserve not counting the original and supposed only delivery. This is over a week of holiday I have lost which I would usually sell back to the company at the end of the year. This is worth over £500.

-The sofa is still marked/not assembled properly.

-We are ultimately still not satisfied 100% with a single piece of all 5 bits of furniture from Elite Style and have our 4th 6 drawer chest still to be replaced.

-Cost of phone calls I have had to make from my mobile.

-Numerous disruptions to my work from calling/being called by Harveys/Elite Style.

-I had to deal with Elite Style personally, surely Harveys should do this as I bought the furniture from them?

-Stress and inconvenience to myself and pregnant partner (little boy is now 6 months old)

-Phone calls every day telling me my furniture is ready to be delivered even though I told them EVERY time that it wasn’t actually ready and we were waiting for the sofa to be repaired and arrangements to be made by the store manager for someone to assemble it for us. I even had 3 phone calls with in 2 hours 1 day asking when they could deliver my replacement furniture despite me telling them the situation

-After more than a whole year we still do not have the sofa suite delivered to us in the condition it should be.

-After a whole year we still do not have a single bit of bedroom furniture we are 100% satisfied with. The only piece agreed that is faulty is the 6 drawer chest.

 

 

If you have read this far then I congratulate you!

If you have had any similar experiences with Harveys or Elite Style I would be intrigued to hear what they were and how they were resolved and what the outcome was.

What should I realistically be asking for and what kind of discount should I expect for all of this? A whole year on and I am still not happy. I have been nothing but patient with them and only recently started to put my foot down with Elite and tell them I want a full refund and to return the goods or 50% off and a replacement 6 drawer chest.

 

I would like to add that through out this whole experience my contact at the store firstly with Marion and later with the manager Steve has been great. They have made a big effort to do as much as they can for matters which are mostly totally out of their control and I have no problems with how I have been treated by Harveys. Just the products from Harveys and the awful service from Elite Style and their terrible products which do not match up to what was seen in the show room.

[powelll]

I had problems with Harveys a couple of years ago - Ordered a bed and chest of drawers which came to nearly £1k in total; not cheap but I didn't mind paying for decent quality stuff ( partly solid oak ). When the delivery came the chest of drawers had a plywood backing ( I had specifically checked the back in store and it was solid wood ). also nails were visible and had scratches to the top ( quite deep & noticeable.

 

The driver refused to load the goods back onto the truck saying he couldn't & that I would have to contact store.

 

Anyway to cut another long story short (!) I had 2 further deliveries or rubbish quality, asked for a refund ( I had paid opn my debit card ) then had to phone up over a 6 wk period nearly every day & eventually get Trading Standards involved to get my money back.

 

It aslo turned out that the driver should have taken the faulty goods back as well...

 

Sorry to say I wouldn't set foot in Harveys again; I had poor service from everyone including the store staff

[Wiggle74]

Replacement 3 piece suite came last week.

 

Mark on it which we were told about in advance but had been informed it was repaired and in as new condition. THis is far from the case and it looks as if somone has simply gone over a scratch with a permanent pen!

 

On the up side we ahve been offered a £1000 refund if we do not have the sofa replaced but Harveys replace the still faulty 6 drawer chest with an acceptable one.

 

My inclination is to accept this offer as I can not be bother to wait another 3 months for replacement furniture and to take ANOTHER day off work. I now only have 1 weeks worth of holiday remaining until December thanks to Harveys.

[Wiggle74]

having accepted the offer of a £1000 refund on the condition that the piece on the sofa is fitted correctly (I do not want my 7 month old son trapping his fingers in this tight gap) so that there is no dangerous tight gap where a piece has not been bolted to the front correctly and we also have the 6 drawer chest replaced with a satisfactory one.

 

Homeserve visited today to fix the sofa. I was not at home but my girlfriend was.

Homeserve say to leave it as is because if it is tightened that the wood might splinter. I find this very difficult to believe as every other item in this range we have had always had this piece firmly and snuggly correctly fitted.

I am not accepting this and contemplating a full refund if this is not rectified with in a week or 2.

 

I am concerned that if I opt for a full refund that I will get nothing back for all of the time I have wasted as leave from work plus the hassle of it all - not a good thing when my girlfriend was heavily pregnant and constnantly worried by all this.

 

Any advice please anyone?

[Wiggle74]

Just as I thought this problem had completely gone away I have had to contact Harveys again, and as per normal I am being given the run around to verious different departments/stores etc who all seem to have conflicting views of where I stand.

 

Long story short incase you haven't read everything above(!)

 

Goods ordered originall April 2006.

Goods first delivered August 2006

Final replacement goods delivered May 2007

 

Over the weekend the sofa has broken.

I would like to know where I stand legally with respect to am I still covered by a 12 month warranty?

A salesman from the store I purchased the goods from told me that I am still covered and put me through to Harveys central customer services.

Central services have told me I am no longer covered by warranty. She said I would only be covered from April 2006 to April 2007.

So if I ordered a new car which was not available for collevtion until 6 month later, would I have only 6 months of warranty remaining? I would like to think not and that the warranty for my sofa is still valid.

 

Could anyone who knows the answer for sure please give me advice on how to proceed.

 

Many thanks.

[lorz45]

Hi, i find most of these large companies couldnt really give a toss about your order, after the sales guy has taken the order the level of customer service is terrible.

 

The last few times i have purchased anything for the house ive used (Edit)

 

The choice is fantastic and the quality of products is far greater than most high street stores.

Edited November 14, 2009 by maroondevo52
Removed commercial link

[First Time Buyer Falkirk]

I've just cancelled an order i made on September 5th at a Harvey's branch in straiton Edinburgh. I spent £489 on table and chairs for the dining room of my new First House. the next day the money was taken from my account. Later on i got a phone call from Lawrence the sales rep who served me. He told me that there was a problem with the particular line that i had ordered up and i would have to wait longer than four weeks. Me being the soft hearted sole that i was gave "Lawrence" until Mid November Yesterday Friday the 13th. Still no phone call saying when my furniture was being delivered.

 

I should point out that I emailed harveys head office two weeks ago who confirmed the furniture would be delivered on the 13th to the warehouse and i would need to wait upto another 7 days for delivery. They apologised and said that the delay was down to problems with deliveries. I did not tell them that "Lawrence" had already told me something completly different and that the problem had been with the line of furniture i ordered. First Lie from harveys

 

It cost me an additional £65 pound for delivery so when the sales rep told me yesterday that the goods had arrived i said "ok so wheres my phone call to say when i'm getting it delivered" the rep went on to say "i'm not the switch board" i said "get on your pc and find out then" he said "minimum delivery date i could get it out to you is the 3rd of December" with that i cancelled there and then as it was out with the 7 day quote i already got from Harveys. "i said why not get a van and deliver it" he said "that would not be economical" I had paid £65 pounds for delivery enough for a lorry to get to newcastle and half way back or a van to do a round trip??? Second lie from Harvey's Delivery times, looks like they were econimical enough with the truth, my trust though, brilliant

 

I have no doubt in my mind that Harvey's put me to the bottom of the queue because i was a cash sale to which they took the money quick enough hence the lies on the delay, it looks more to me that they deliberatley put me to the bottom of the pile and catered for the Customers that ordered on HP, i bare no malice to these people and hope they were better satified than me, who i do bare malice for are Harvey's or thier smug sales teams who have no idea about customer service or care.

 

I intend to make this complaint as public as possible, regardless of the staff from harveys who plant sob story's on these threads of how it will affect THEM if Harveys gets slated. all the more reason for Harveys to practice a bit more customer care rather than abuse customer trust.

 

I hope you all get rightfull resolve to all your complaints.

 

First Time Buyer Falkirk

[miss muppet]

Wiggle, stick to your guns, don't be fobbed off by them. Your one difficulty is the finance, if it had been a cash sale I would have said cancel and take them to court but basically take photos of all the damage.

[EmmsyLou81]

This is the first time i've left anything like this, it doesn't seem no where near as bad as other peoples but i feel people should be able to find this sort of stuff out before they buy from this store.

I've copied the complaint in below....

 

16th July 2010

 

Dear Alan Marnie

 

It is with regret that I contact you with regards to the delivery of your products which I ordered in store, Sunderland.

 

The order date given was Friday 18th June, this was confirmed in store then again by letter. I took the day off work to wait for this delivery. At no point was I informed that the product would not be delivered on that day.

The following day (19th June) I received a call from the delivery driver stating they would be able to delivery my product in less than 1 hour. Fortunately I was able to get somebody to my house to take delivery of the products. The delivery men came with the boxes (6 of which where placed on the floor of the kitchen). They asked for a signature on the delivery note and left without leaving a copy of the delivery note or giving time to inspect the products.

I began assembling the products to which I found no legs for the table. I contacted the delivery driver back but he informed me that there were no other boxes on the van. He then told me he would write on the delivery note that the legs had not been delivered and that the legs would be sent out on Monday 21st June 2010 by DHL.

I have spoke to your contact staff and had a very bad experience with them. The first contact made I explained the situation and the phone went dead, I contacted them back and spoke to another member of the contact team who then told me I would get a call back. Four days past and again I had to make contact. I explained the whole situation to another member of the team who told me I would receive some replacement legs.

I received a delivery at my address from UPS last night (01/07/10, I had asked for it to be delivered to my father’s house as I was out at work). In the delivery box were four legs wrapped nicely in bubble wrap, I really couldn’t believe my eye’s and began to laugh when I realised that you had sent the legs only, I now have two table tops (boat black glass) and 4 legs but nothing to connect the whole thing together.

I phoned your Sunderland store as soon as I opened the box, I spoke to Malcolm who was very helpful and I believe him to be an asset to your company. He took control of the whole situation, he explained that there was nothing he could do as the offices had closed for the day but he would contact the department first thing in the morning and get everything sorted out. True to his word, Malcolm contacted us the very next day, he told us to expect a phone call as he had arranged for a whole new table complete with all the fixtures and legs to be delivered.

Unfortunately this phone call never materialised, and I again found myself talking to your contact centre. I was informed that the order had now gone to the planning department and they still didn’t have a date for delivery. To my up most shock I was then informed that the parts of the table, which have been lying on my kitchen floor would not be collected at the same time as the new complete table would be delivered, I would have to store these for you until a collection could be arranged. Is this an absolute joke? Don’t you feel you have inconvenienced me enough?

 

I am very unhappy about the service provided by Harvey’s The Furniture Store.

I paid £500 for a table and four chairs set. I paid £100 on date of sale and the rest 6 weeks ago. The delivery date was 4 weeks ago. I still don’t have a usable table.

 

I request that the following action be taken, before I seek further guidance on the matter;

 

1) The complete table delivered and inspected before the delivery driver leaves.

2) The parts to the table which have been lying on my kitchen floor removed

3) Monetary compensation.

 

After all it is immoral, and in full violation of the Sale of Goods Act 1979, to lead customers to believe that they can order and receive a full product.

 

Steinhoff International has a code of ethics on their website;

The Steinhoff code of ethics aims to protect the company, its employees and all stakeholders against unethical behaviour. The formal code describes behaviour that constitutes unlawful or unethical business practices and highlights the importance of reporting unethical and unlawful business practices on a confidential basis to the board of directors. The manual also indicates how to report a breach of Steinhoff’s policies or a violation of the law on a confidential basis to either the company secretary, or the group human resources director

 

Since you failed to respond to my last letter I now give you 12 days to respond

 

I look forward to your response.

 

 

Regards,

 

I will be posting this letter to your head office

 

 

This was the response i got.....

 

From: Customer Service [mailto:CustomerService@harveys-furnishing.co.uk]

Sent: 17 July 2010 09:58

To:

Subject: RE: Harveys Web - Contact Us - Customer Service Department

 

Dear

 

Thank you for your email to Customer Service unfortunately you did not provide us with an invoice or order number so we were unable to look into your claim.

 

To assist us to look into your complaint further please could you call our customer service department on 0844 372 1000, our opening hours are 9.00am - 5.30pm Monday to Friday and 9.00am – 5.00pm Saturdays

 

I look forward to your response.

 

 

 

Miss C Braithwaite

Harveys Customer Service Department

 

This was my reply....

 

Thank you for your easy response to my request.

 

I can not believe you do not have the search facilities to look for my order using my full name and address, more like couldn’t be bothered.

 

I will not be contacting your Customer Service Department on the number provided as I feel I have wasted enough of my money trying to sort your problem out.

 

This should not be a problem of mine, had I even has an inkling of how diabolical your service/ regards for customers satisfaction is I would have never ordered from your company.

To advertise that your company “brings your home to life” is an absolute farce. As I can see it the only life you have brought to my home is a life of misery and complaints. Moving home is stressful enough without your useless, incompetence of half delivering items. You tell me, of what use is a table top that can only lie on the floor of your kitchen for 5 weeks while the useless company you have bought it from fumbles around for excuse after excuse.

 

I can now see how seriously you priorities your complaints, having in the first instance went through the correct procedure and trying to deal with the company directly. I will now have to take this complaint a further.

 

My 12 days to respond to this complaint still stands, I expect a reply by Tuesday the 27th July 2010.

 

The order number which I was given, that you need to be able to act is ******

Edited July 23, 2010 by EmmsyLou81

[ThePain]

God I have the feeling I am going to be moaning about harveys for a long time orderd 2 sofa's april for del in end june,after many calls the came in august and harvey had payment in may for them cashhhhh

now the fun starts,door post paint scraped of it when getting in sofa (we have had £50 chq for that so no problems there) seam on 3 seater it comes apart now found hole in material in side phones there customers service was told i should have checked it before ie 3 days after i got it so lesson learnt check check re check I have a man coming out to see me next week about the seams seems to me, I may have a long list for him