Can they do this?

[MeiMe]

Posting on behalf on my mother.

My mother brought a leather recliner sofa from a well known sofa shop paid in full before delivery for near enough £5000. She made it clear to the salesman that as she worked away they'd have to deliver it when she was home and with plenty of notice to which they agreed. They chopped and changed the date and didn't give plenty of notice like agreed and it got to the point they said it was coming on X day and someone had to be there to tough luck.

A neighbour let them in and signed for it as she couldn't be home, but on later inspection we discovered It turned up with the plug snapped off and yet they had crammed it into an EU/UK extension lead (my mother works out the country a lot) to proved it worked, the seats were all different lengths and it was completely understaffed so it was sagged, wrinkled etc. I advised her to raise a complaint asap to which she did and was told "we don't handle complaints on the weekend but fill in the form online you only have 7 days to raise a complaint" (it was Saturday), so she filled in their complaints form and received no acknowledgement but had taken screenshots of the complaint form.

Despite this she went into store where she ordered it form the next day and spoke to the manager, showing them photos of the faults and the fact she'd filled in the online form where she was told the form doesn't work, but someone would ring her the next day and if she hasn't had a call back within a week to raise it was her credit card company.

She hadn't so raised it with her credit card who said they had X amount of days to contact them etc which was fine. 3 weeks ago she had a call stating that a "expert" would be out to look at the issues and issue them a report on their finds which was fine but this wouldn't be to the middle of July. Obviously this is yet to happen, however due to the fact they've not corresponded with the credit card people they've now issued my mother back a full refund.

Today she's received an angry voicemail from someone saying that as they've not conversed with the credit card company they've issued a refund and due to this they're no longer doing the report and they're coming to take the sofa back.

Can they do this? I've advised her not to worry she's done everything in her power to rectify the situation but she's elderly and worrying that they're just going to turn up and take it

[prh47bridge]

From what you have said, it sounds like the supplier doesn't understand consumer law. The idea that you only have 7 days to raise a complaint is wrong for a start. The fact they weren't responding to the credit card company is also not a good sign, nor is the angry voicemail or the repeated issues over delivery.

As your mother has had a full refund, the supplier is entitled to take the sofa back. This may not be what your mother wanted, but I would take this as a lucky escape. However, if she really wants to ignore the red flags, she could try talking to the supplier and see if they will agree to fix the sofa rather than taking it away in return for your mother paying a reduced price.