To ask if you have also had a bad experience with John Lewis furniture customer service?

[workingtowards]

6 months ago we bought a really expensive corner sofa from John Lewis and the fabric (dark teal brushed cotten) has started to fade in areas of high traffic in a weird slightly uneven way. We complained and JL sent a third party ‘sofa technician’ round.

He took a brief look and without any chemical tests declared that it was probably ‘Fake tan and body fluid’. We are in our late 50’s, don’t use fake tan and the most exciting thing that happens on our sofa is watching the Bake Off final. To say we were shocked is an understatement.

We took a magnified photo that showed that the issue was the weave breaking, not a stain, but JL have stuck their heels in, so we are having to get a second opinion from the Furniture Ombudsman. Has anybody else out there had a similar experience with JL? We are stuck with a sofa that is proving not fit for purpose and I feel like they are trying to embarrass us into backing off.

I'm afraid not. They've always been excellent whenever I've had a problem with their furniture. I guess they will always accept the decision of their independent assessor - that's the point of using one. If he did his job incorrectly, your next step will be proving that but it's easier said than done. It sounds as if JL have done all that anyone can expect them to do really.

The JL customer staff are lovely, I agree. My concern is with the third party sofa technician. He is honestly barking up the wrong tree with fake tan and body fluid - it’s just not true, but once it’s in writing, it’s taken as verbatim. It’s so upsetting. We are getting an independent opinion, but it will take a while.

I am thinking that if the dark green teal brushed cotton has done this with us, there must be other people out there that it has happened to.

Just noticed that John Lewis are the main advertisers on mumsnet. Awks 😳

If they didn’t take samples then I don’t see how they could possibly state that fake tan and body fluids were an issue.
It sounds like the assessor was trying to embarrass you into closing your claim. I’d go to citizens advice and consider the small claims court too.

Ads are personalised, so it's probably because you've been Googling them/on their website/ made a purchase.

Oh the irony! 😁

I'm in the furniture trade and it's likely to be the pile of the fabric/nap. Chances are that they used the pile in different directions on different areas of the sofa. There is absolutely nothing you can do to improve the look of it, I hate to say.

Get the ombudsman in for an inspection - I get at least 3 phone calls a week asking for us to do one for people but it's not cost effective to do so. And I would make a complaint about the technician! What a steaming pile of .

This is how it looks. It has been building up over the last 3 months. First shot is a close up.

Have you tried googling the name of the sofa combined with fabric and colour and reviews?

We won’t shop there anymore. They kept supplying poor quality stuff. When we complained we got somewhere but it just spoiled the enjoyment and we got the impression we were labelled as pests. We’ve gone elsewhere. JL are 12,000 lighter in the past 18 months! Hoping they are are watching!

The problem with pile crush is that it's not considered to be a fault/flaw but rather an inherent property of it. Have you tried using a soft brush to try and brush the pile into one direction to see if that improves the look - and it may be a lot of maintenance to do this daily to stop the problem worsening.

We get new fabric pattern books in all the time from reps, and always check the pile by rubbing in opposite directions to see if you get any crush marks. Velvet is the worst offender by far for this.

Just get the ombudsman out.
if they agree, just do a credit/debit card charge back.

I have to say that my experience with JL customer service has been pretty dire. I found you could only contact their customer service call centre and not the store you bought it from. Eventually, after alot of time and effort, they offered a £50 goodwill gesture. Measly offering for a very delayed delivery and different people lying as to product having been delivered.

It was a (not cheap by any stretch) large rug. We had:

1. 'Covid backlog of deliveries.
2. We left it with a neighbour. We asked which neighbour as could 100% state they would tell us they'd taken it in for us. Of course, they couldn't tell us as they were lying.
3. 'Oh that was a mistake. We actually didn't deliver it to a neighbour'. It's scheduled for next week delivery but we can't tell you which day.
4. Two weeks later - still no delivered rug.

It was a nightmare. You have to complete a form stating why you want it escalated.

Never again will I buy from JL unless I can take it away there and then.

I will never buy anything from JL again. I ordered 2 bedside cabinets and 2 chest of drawers from JL. Bedside cabinets were delivered without a problem. Chest of drawers went "out of stock" and the delivery date kept being moved back. After a few months JL cancelled the order and refunded without asking if I'd prefer to wait or cancel. I had to order elsewhere which means my new bedroom furniture doesn't match. Why were the products on the website to be ordered if they didn't have them?

Initially, like you we thought it might just be the pile, but have tried gently brushing -looking at the magnified image, we can see plastic fibres breaking from the weave and it turns out that the brushed cotton is 50% recycled plastic. JL have acknowledged this, but are now trying to claim that it is due to foreign fibres being introduced, whilst still claiming it is a stain. How they can have it both ways, I really don’t know.

Not furniture but pet insurance.

My little dog died very suddenly and unexpectedly five years ago. I made a claim for vet's fees. I had a phone call from an agent instructed to act for JL pet insurance, asking what had happened. A few weeks later I had a letter rejecting the claim, setting out a wholly inaccurate and basically fictional account of what had happened (claiming wrongly that there was a pre-existing condition) and basically accusing me of fraud. However, they said, they were willing to let it go if I gave up my claim. BTW they also referred to my Tesco pet insurance. Couldn't even get the provider right

The trauma of being accused of making a fraudulent claim about my beloved dog's death almost broke me. It was made worse by the fact that my father had died two weeks later. A month later I wrote to the CEO enclosing the letter, plus a letter from my vet, making it clear that I'd pursue them in court if they didn't make it right. Shortly afterwards I received a sympathetic email from the CEO's staff saying it had been referred elsewhere. A week or so after that I had a call saying that my claim had now been accepted.

I'd never use them for anything important again. They are not what they used to be.

Tbf they aren’t what they used to be. I bought some shutters from them and it took a year to come with several mistakes in between.

I foolishly still buy their stuff but would never buy anything large (kitchen, bathroom, carpet) from them as I’ve never heard anything good about this service! All I can suggest is, complain to the CEO by email (can find their email address online), write a detailed letter explaining what you’ve written on here and hopefully someone will take it more seriously. Good luck.

I bought a bed which broke - in the middle of the night. Waking up to feeling strangely wonky and figuring out how to fix it was a pretty miserable experience.
But the real horror was the saga I had trying to get delivery of a replacement bed. Too awful to go into all the unfathomable twists and turns and unbelievable craziness involved in trying to get a simple bed delivery to happen. I don't even like to think about it or dwell on what they put me through. Scarred forever by it, never again will I buy a bed from them. Or indeed any other furniture.

@LeakyPipes That's just awful - what an terrible way to be treated when you had just lost your dog.

If you search on Mumsnet, you’ll find several threads about woeful JL service.

one thread was about 10 years ago at a guess, bed not delivered and through the thread eventually JL sorted it.

I used to buy all large purchases from them until around 2008/9 when I ordered a fridge freezer and booked a date of delivery- they never showed up, they turned up 2 days later. That’s not service, so I shop elsewhere for large expensive items.