I bought a leather suite from Land of Leather last year, this was delivered at the end of December.  There was a couple of marks on it at the time of delivery that I agreed to have fixed, this repair lasted five months when the marks started to return,  I then noticed that the colour was coming off in other places. To cut a long story short they have agreed to refund but want to charge me a usage charge for the time that I have used the suite.  I don't consider that I have had reasonable use of this suite as it has been faulty from the start.  The inconviennce to me hasnt been considered ie I will be without furniture in my house while waiting for a new suite (between 10 - 12 weeks), My lounge has been decorated to match this suite.  I feel I am loosing out because they have sold me faulty goods, can I insist on a full refund as the original fault was reported at the time of delivery and the other faults reported within five months.

 

 Thank you in advance

 

Sale of Goods Act states clearly that an item must be 'fit for the purpose intended' and this clearly fails in that criteria.

Tell Land of Leather to take this rubbish away and refund your money or you will charge them for storage at £xx per day. That will ofcus their minds a little bit.

Honestly, these chain stores that act like bullies make me sick.

SHARK!

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For every positive action, there's an equal and opposite government plan.

Please could you let me know how you got on as i am having exactly the same problem with them

 

Ta

Sorry to tell you, but we dont have a leg to stand on.  I have been to trading standards and it is legal for them to give a partial refund because I have had use of the goods.  The words customer service or gesture of goodwill or even sorry for any inconvenience  do not exist in land of leathers staff hand book.  I have been offered a loan of a suite from a friend until my new one arrives in Dec.  So as land of Leather had not made any attempt to arrange the uplift of their faulty suite,  I went into the shop to tell them they had 1 week to get it uplift as I had another one coming.

The first attempt the drivers showed up one and half hours late, by which time I had returned to work having taken the morning of to wait for them to come.

second attempt the men showed, came into the house then said they didnt have enough room on the van to take the suite & said they would come back between 4pm & 5pm, farcical what kind of company sends a full van to uplift a suite .  I was called after 7 pm that night to say they were running late and would now not have time to come for the suite.  They said that they would phone the shop and tell them to re-arrange uplift

I had to call them, to be told manager not in, he will be back Thursday.

During this whole nightmare I am the one who has had to get time off work,  I have had to call the store to chase things up,  I am the one who has had all the inconvenience, all because Land of Leather  sold me a faulty suite.  Also the manager told me that they would sell on my faulty suite at a reduced price,  the bloody cheek of them.....

 All I want now is for land of leather to take away the piece of crap they call leather and never have anything to do with that shop again.

 Its a true saying "you get what you pay for"

Just to say that I am having exactly the same problem. The colour is lifting off of our brown sofa after two months use. To top it off when I asked them to come and look at the sofa they have said that I must sign an agreement which says that I have to pay £35 plus VAT if this is not a manufacturing fault. Although I am certain this is the same "colour lifting problem" that you are experiencing I do not want to take a risk by signing the agreement. I will pursue with a letter which consumer direct have been kind enough to advise me on but ultimately I am reassured to know that I am not the only customer (the store in Taunton told me that I was!!). I will pursue but it sounds like either way we will loose money.

I Bought a Land of Leather Simone Suite, a three seater, a two seater and a free rocking recliner for £1578 on the 10th October 2007.The leather of the showroom suite was Chestnut in" Luxurious leather". When it arrived it was a rather dull looking brown leather that slowly seemed to improve to a more chestnut appearance as the leather wore in until by Christmas the colour ORANGE was showing throught the brown. Is this how the chinese make Chestnut by using a layer of orange then a layer of brown over the top of the grey heavily skived leather.

We rang up LOL for a complaint form which duly arrived and now await the assessor to arrive but from previous posts it looks as though the suite is scrap or should I say crap for if the colour is only skin deep then how long is it before the next one goes the same way?

When the assessors wife rang to confirm the appointment she said she knew exactly what was wrong and that the finish coat was missing and that the assessor would re-colour the worn parts and then re- coat with a finish coat in our lounge. I don`t think so !!!!

Does anybody know what they are talking about? What finish coat ? , and how long does this finish coat last? I suppose until the guarantee runs out?

From the previous letters it appears such suites are scrapped, to be replaced by what? more rubbish?

The salesman at LOL don`t give a clue that there is anything wrong with their "luxurious leather" which is in fact a thin skived leather with a thin textured coating , even on their more expensive suites and I do not consider that Chinese leather for £ 1578 to be cheap. But there you go, I have obviously been fooled by the sales hype from LOL and their glib salesmen.

At this rate it will not be long before LOL go the way of Klausner leather who went bust last year and with LOL taking deposits on suites today to be delivered in 16 -18 weeks time a lot of money will be involved.

It`s a case of Let the buyer beware!

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3rd February 2008. Upon further investigation I do not now believe that the suite is leather in the sence that we think of leather. I think that it is made in CHINA from leather fibres with some other material added that is then bound together with an adhesive and rolled into sheets which are then sprayed with various colours to give the desired effect and then sealed to preserve the finish until the preservation wears off. I believe that my suite was made from a faulty batch because the shops sample suite is shiny and shows no signs of wear whereas with my suite the colour is coming off after only 2 months.

So far I have received nothing but support and curtesy from the LOL shop while they await the assessors report next week.

Will keep this up to date and review the situation after the report from the assessor..

LOLisrubbish ---- In your case you are still within the timeframe allowed to reject that suite under the sale of goods act, as being unfit for the purpose it was bought for and being of inferior quality than was expected, they are obliged to offer a refund in full or a replacement suite if you decide to exercise your legal rights under the SOG act, you are not obliged to accept offers of repair.

If you want to exercise your rights then write stating your reasons to them sent recorded delivery.

It`s a case of Let the buyer beware!

Also a case of make the seller aware !

I am experiencing a similar issue with a tan coloured sofa that I bought at Land of Leather approx 4 months ago. They have offered to attempt to repair but clearly there is an issue with the product and if it has happened once it will no doubt happen in other areas of the sofa too. I'm fighting for a full refund but to no availl.

On a brighter note I received a £10 voucher for M&S in the post today from cherrymonday.com so I am well pleased!

Thursday 7th February 2008. A very efficient man from ECOMASTER called today to look at the Simone Leather suite.

Without any commment he took photographs, made out a report sheet , photographed the suite identification stapled under the chair and said ECOMASTER would be sending LOL a report with photographs within 3 working days and we should then expect to hear again from LOL. The suite is now 118 days old. We do not want a refund as this would still leave us sitting in deckchairs as was the case before this suite arrived.

What we want is the suite they sold us in the shop, which is still for sale at the same price. The shop model is fairly shiny and chestnut in appearance ans shows no wear, while the suite that we were delivered was a dull brown which quickly wore off to reveal an orange undercoat.

A refund, no matter how legal, will not get us sitting in a comfortable suite of reclining leather chairs it will only cause us more grief as we attempt to hunt down another suite.It took over a month to hunt down what we thought was a suitable suite.

will update as necessary:

We have had a visit from the Assessor for our "similar" problem of colour peeling. He was extremely pleasant but did tell us that he works for all the main sofa retailers!!! I am sorry to tell you that he did the "repair" not an assessment (even though we were told that he was an assessor not a repairer). It might be different for you but he just cleaned the sofa, sprayed on some colour and told us to leave it to dry for a day. He did the repair on Monday and by the Saturday the sofa was peeling again in the same places. I have done some ringing around and it seems that once you get these problems with bonding they may never be solved because there is an "oil" preventing the colour sticking (also the colour layer is far too thin). We are now waiting for the "assessor" (probably the same repair guy) to revisit on Monday! The store have been polite but claim that they have never had these problems with any other suites. A friend of mine has the same sofa and her sofa arms are beginning to peel too.

I have since found out that if we had bought from DFS they are part of FIRA an independent arbitration service and atleast we could have an independent assessment done for £50, whereas I cannot find one cheaper than £60 & VAT and FIRA charge £295 & VAT for non-member assessments? This is a real shame because my credit card company will not help us unless they have an independent report stating that the sofa is faulty.

Trading Standards have offered to analyse the so called "leather" but that means we have to cut a stamp sized piece out of the sofa and then we definitely will not get our money back!! All good stuff - sorry it is not better news but I will keep you informed.

It seems that what happens when you have a complaint with LOL is very much at the descretion of the stores manager.

The very efficient assessor that called to us was in a white van sign written ECOMASTER and if you check the credentials of ECOMASTER who undertake work for Land of Leather, Argos, NEXT, John Lewis, House of Fraser. they are country wide based. We told the stores manager at LOL at the time of the complaint when we took the complaints form into them that we will not acccept a repair as we understood repairs to leather fabrics don`t take and don`t last. I can readily believe that it is imposible to duplicate the PRC factory process spray on coating and sealant and that any house call by a repair man would be a temporary cosmetic fix only. I have since found a friend of ours worked for LOL as an assessor/repairer and drove all round the country with his repair kit that he said "Never worked".It was a temporary cosmetic repair only.

I still await a response from LOL to the assessors report which sould be with them by February 13th 2008 and will write again when I know a bit more.

On another note: Made in the PRC which seems all the rage for cheap importers and greater profits is like the word Made in Japan was in the 60`s. Its synonymous for poor quality goods. Tony Blairs ECO light bulbs designed to save the world from Climate change were OK when made in HOLLAND at £10 each and are still working after 10 years but the new ones made in the PRC and costing around 20 to 30pence each in the supermarkets are only lasting a matter of months.So much for the CHINESE version of quality.

February 14th.

Called in at LOL to ask if the report by ECOMASTER about the brown colour rubbing off to reveal orange on our new suite had been received. Was told by LOL the report would not arrive for 10 days even though ECOMASTER said the report is sent in 3 days. Upon further questioning the report was found on the LOL computer.Was then told that their repair man who would have to read the report was on holiday and that the report could not be dealt with before monday the 18th of February.

No wonder LOL have not registered with the Ombudsman as so many others have.

It looks like a LOL stalling game to me.

Will now have to wait until the 18th of February to get any further with a resolution.

Meanwhile the brown colour continues to come off.

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February 18th.

LOL have agreed to change the suite at no cost to us. They have paid for the inspection report, the order and delivery of a new suite from the warehouse this Wednesday. The only variation is that we are now going to try the cream colour Simone suite and not the brown.

So far the LOL team have been nothing but entirely helpful and under Trading Standards Rules have fully met all their obligations in a professional manner.

The new suite from store is due in this Wednesday. Will report condition of suite and how it wears.

Fot those of you who have forgotton my first letter , the origonal Brown colour started coming off within 3 weeks to reveal an orange under colour due to faulty top fixing coat.

20th February 2008 There...and I thought we`d finally cracked it!!!

The lorry delivery duly arrived as promised this afternoon with a replacement cream couloured leather suite in replace of our Brown going Orange leather suite and ....

They had on the lorry a new 3 seater in CREAM a new 2 seater in BROWN and a new recliner in CREAM.

So we have now finished up with a brown and cream combination in the lounge while they sort outwhere the missing 2 seater in cream is.

Its more Buster Keaton than Keaton.!