To warn you all that Laura Ashley painted furniture is total crap and the company couldn't give a shit

[mycatlikestwiglets]

I bought nearly £3k of bedroom furniture from Laura Ashley last year (the "Clifton" range). We researched carefully what to buy and as we have loads of LA stuff we thought we were buying quality and the huge outlay would be worth it. After a debacle over damaged furniture being delivered the last items, a dressing table and stool, were finally delivered last September. So far so ok, until I noticed last week that the paint was cracking and peeling on the legs of the dressing table and stool.

I sent pictures to Laura Ashley last week after notifying them over the telephone of the issue (and surprise surprise, they tried to make up reasons immediately as to why it might have happened, asking if the furniture was near a heat source or a window - which it isn't). I received an email earlier this week saying the pictures had been referred to their "technicians" for analysis, and today I had the following message:

"I am now in receipt of our Technicians findings following the
inspection of the photographs that you have submitted.

I have been advised that they consider the issues that you have raised
as treatment after purchase and the legs look like they have been
saturated and this has resulted in the wood and paint cracking.
Whilst I do sympathise, unfortunately, Laura Ashley is unable to accept
responsibility on this occasion, as your furniture is not considered to
be at fault."

I am utterly fuming. The furniture has been sitting on my bedroom carpet, the wood is not split in any way and it certainly hasn't had a sniff of water. I'll be taking this to court if necessary because there's no way they're getting away with this. DO NOT BUY THIS FURNITURE

That certainly doesn't look like primed wood. Ugh how very annoying.

It looks to me like the Hoover has been bashing the legs. Have you asked your cleaner?

LA would think this a plausible excuse to fob off inferior goods.

It is nothing like legs having been bashed by the vacuum cleaner . But for the record my cleaner was similarly astonished when she noticed the peeling (no bashes, no scrapes, no dents or damage of any kind, just peeling like when wood hasn't been primed before painting).

Agreed. From the latest picture it looks like the paint has simply not adhered to the wood. Definitely a fault by LA.

Weird that it's only at the bottom of the legs though?

My old, cruddy skirting boards sometimes look like that when the hoover's been bashing them, that's why I said it.

From the way the paint has split it certainly looks like the wood has swollen due to damp. It looks as if the leg has been standing in damp, so I'm not surprised they have said that.

But since you assure us it hasn't, it must either have got wet in storage or delivery, or the wood was not seasoned properly before it was machined, which would have caused it to split or deform.

You are right to pursue this.

JumpRope the splitting starts at the bottom but on the leg pictured it goes up quite high (or I suspect would if I touched it - I've tried not to because it obvs makes it look more shabby and I have to live with it atm). I appreciate you can't tell that from the pics.

UPDATE: "Ryan" messaged me this morning. He says they are unable to take any further action and suggests I take my complaint to the Furniture Ombudsman. Looks like I'll be spending my morning writing a letter before action

Best of luck. Don't let them off the hook.

Absolutely disgraceful. Keep pushing, and keep posting on here with updates op. any company that treats it heir customers with such disdain deserves to be shamed in public.

I saw that company change dramatically once sold, so sad. They had equal attitude to the staff.

I remember once being called in to a meeting of the whole HO team to announce some exciting news. The news was that there would be no pay rises for the majority of staff that year as sales had been bad, but they were generously increasing our staff discount. However, those at Grade X and above would be given a pay rise and an extra days holiday.

We all looked around to try and figure out which grade we were (hardly anyone knew) but it turned out that the grade was director level only.

So they called us in to tell us that they were awarding themselves.

I was waiting for them to announce they were getting a new company car each, and that we had to stand and clap them out of the car park, but thankfully they didn't.

Oh and the second announcement was that they were finally installing AC in the building. In the directors suite of offices. We worked under a glass roof with only 2 or 3 windows at the front of a huge office in a converted bus depot.

Can you write into the BBC and get that angry bald bloke onto it?

Furniture Ombudsmen ?
Imagine elderly gentleman wearing brown cow gown with pencil tucked behind his ear, holding clipboard sucking in air and making a lot of tutting noises.

Oh and my comment on their Facebook page has been removed too

I agree with the first bit of their technicians findings, it does indeed look like a water saturation problem. I totally disagree with the second bit, that it's your fault. How the hell can they tell from a photo when the damage occured. Total madness. I suspect what has happened is that the table has been stored badly for a period of time in the warehouse. It has been stood on a wet/damp floor and the dry wood of the legs have sucked up all the moisture causing them to expand. The table has then been delivered to you and has been in normal, non damp conditions. The wood has then dried out again and as it's shrunk back to original size it's left the paint behind, hence why it now just falls away. I'm not an expert and even I can see that. Take them to the cleaners, cheeky buggers.

Haven't RTFT but I haven't bought anything from Laura Ashley since I waited four months for a console which arrived completely misshapen (the drawer wouldn't even go in). The delivery men tried to run out before I'd looked at it but I made them come back. I then was told I had to wait a further seven months for a replacement, because there was a waiting list and I'd gone to the back of the cue. After weeks and weeks of phone calls I finally got a refund, about five months after we'd first paid for it.

Friend had similar issue with sofa.

It's such a shame because I love their style, but I just can't face the waits and not being assured it's a quality product at the end of it.

I work in social media management and PR. I suggest you post again on Facebook that you're displeased with their response and that they've deleted your previous post. It's the persistent ones that get through - they'll want you to shut up. Often RP departments can recommend certain customer complaints need to be dealt with rapidly if they're causing a big enough stink.

*Not RP department, PR department!

I didn't realise that they were so crap
Thanks for posting this as it will stop me from buying from them
If they value their customers so little they won't have my custom

What a bunch of cheeky incompetent piss-takers.

Awful that a lovely British brand with such a proud history is being destroyed in this way.

Be sure to send them a link to this thread with your letter. Never mess with the ladies of Mumsnet!

Sorry for what you are going through, OP. What was once a proud British brand has sadly gone completely downhill. They are a triumph of marketing over substance.

If anyone is considering buying anything from them, take a look at this first: www.reviewcentre.com/reviews167791.html

mycat In your next communication with LA, consider requesting copies of documentation relating to the moisture content of the items prior to painting; the names of the products used to paint/lacquer the items; the temperature/humidity of the environment in which the furniture was stored prior to, and after, painting and prior to delivery to you. The peeling items could have been stored/painted in different environments to the non peeling items, and may even have been painted by different suppliers. There are lots of things that could have occurred prior to receipt of the furniture by you. If the items were not adequately dried to the appropriate moisture content before painting, or if the items were exposed to unsuitable conditions before they reached you, this could result in greater than anticipated movement of the wood (i.e. greater than seasonal movement of wood, which is to be expected), which could be causing the paint to shed. If the manufacturer's instructions for the products used have not been followed (e.g. appropriate coverage; drying times between coats), then that could also cause the paint to be less stable. It could even be down to careless storage/transport of the items by LA or a third party.

I think it's probably unrealistic to aim for replacement of all your items (i.e. including non faulty ones) on the grounds that they were intended to match. If you could get a refund for the faulty items, could you consider replacing them with items that could be painted up/have handles replaced to look similar to your remaining furniture?

I am so sorry you are having to deal with this kind of shit, i am fuming of your behalf. I will never, ever, ever buy anything from LA again

Silent you need to tell LA that. I've Facebook / tweeted them everyday for a week and all of my posts were deleted - none of them were out of line or sweary (for a change!).

Thanks for those with practical suggestions and particularly fascicle, I'll be requesting the info you suggest. Just to be clear though I haven't asked them to replace all my furniture, just the faulty dressing table and stool. The rest is fine and I would expect a replacement from the same range to match in with them.

Hello mycatlikestwiglets.
Would you like me to tweet LA for you?
I've found twitter to be very effective in my complaints about M&S, Chester Zoo and Arriva trains....