Customers who bought sofas from a Welsh company have come forward with a series of complaints including significant delivery delays, furniture they say never showed up, incorrect orders and poor quality.
Merthyr Tydfil-based Sofa World Wales still officially active according to Companies House but customers claim they haven't been able to get hold of the owners since at least August. Several customers claim their orders have never been fulfilled, while others have been awaiting refunds and correspondence to complaints for months on end to no avail.
A recent public Facebook status posted by the family-run company in August said the shop was closed due to a staffing issue. Customers have since responded to say they have not been able to get in touch. When WalesOnline tried the company's phone number on Friday, November 11, it appeared to be cut off.
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The company responded to us on Monday, November 15, with a statement on behalf of the owner from his family which said a number of factors had caused problems including the economic climate and the owner's mental health. Although the business is still listed on Companies House as being active, they said it was no longer trading and the owner's mental health had led to a delay in it being officially wound down.
Alun Pippin from Bridgend ordered a four seater sofa, a love chair and two stools from the company in autumn 2021. He said he went into the store and found staff helpful and agreed to put a £200 deposit down. However, now he wishes he ordered his sofa from a standard chain retailer.
The 48-year-old said: "When I first went into the shop, it seemed nice and the staff member was polite. The furniture is bespoke so you could customise the sofas. I sat on one that was nearly nice but requested that I wanted it to be softer - the staff member said this could happen so I put down the deposit. The delivery time was three months compared to five months at DFS which suited my timeframe better as I was moving house.
"The staff member told me I wouldn't hear much from them in the first couple of months but that as it got closer, they would send me regular updates and pictures of the finished sofa ahead of the delivery."
However, as it got closer to the delivery date, Alun said he hadn't heard anything from the company, so he decided to chase them up himself.
He said: "When I got in touch, nobody answered my calls or emails. A week went by and I didn't have any contact. I was somewhere between annoyed and concerned. Eventually the staff member got in touch to say they had been on holiday. We agreed on a delivery date."
Alun said he chased the company again for a week, with no correspondence until the night before his agreed delivery date. He said he was told by a different staff member there was no delivery scheduled and that the other employee had made a mistake. He said he was told he would need to wait another two weeks, but that they would try to deliver it within the first week. They also offered him free delivery - which would have otherwise cost him £50.
The next delivery date was agreed for a morning delivery, Alun said. "I chased all morning on the day of the delivery. I spoke to [the owner] at lunchtime of the 'morning delivery' and he said it wasn’t finished and didn’t know what time." Next, Alun said he was promised a call within an hour, which didn't happen. Two hours later, Alun called the company himself.
He said he was told they would cancel the delivery and refund his deposit. However, as Alun didn't want to go through the process of finding another sofa and waiting for months, they settled on a £150 discount and for the main suite to be delivered at 6pm. The stools would be delayed by a number of weeks as they were not yet ready, he claimed he was told.
Once the entire suite had been delivered, Alun said he had to chase the company for an invoice for around two weeks. He was charged around £2,300 in total.
"I queried the invoice and asked for the break-down. No discount was added as promised, I was overcharged for the stools by around £100 and I was charged for the delivery," he said.
It is now around eight months later and Alun said he has still heard nothing from the company and has been blocked on several of their social media channels. To make matters worse, Alun said the bespoke element of the sofa was also not catered for and that his sofa was harder than the one he trialled in store, rather than softer as he requested.
Alun said: "We could have gone with DFS, but this was a Welsh independent business and we wanted to support them. The delivery time was also two months less than DFS. I have never spent that much money on something in my life and I'm gutted. If I ordered from DFS, I would have had what I ordered and if I had an issue I could have gone in the store to speak to someone."
Jacqui Chaffe from Aberdare ordered two leather Italian sofas in June 2021. Even though they took seven months to arrive, she believes she is one of the "lucky ones" as she received her furniture. Following its arrival, Jacqui said she contacted the company to ask for an extra part to make her sofa larger and a better fit for her home. She said this should not have been an issue because of the type of suite she bought.
However, despite putting down a £200 deposit for the £900 piece, she never received it. The 56-year-old said: "I was told it would take eight to 10 weeks to arrive. 12 weeks passed and I still hadn't heard from them so I rang them up. I spoke to a different person than I had previously and they said there was a problem with the company in Italy so it would take longer than usual. I was told to ring back in six weeks.
"I rang back six weeks later. This was 18 weeks altogether. They told me the same thing and I was getting a bit fed up, so I phoned again and said I wanted to get my deposit back. They said they had a problem with the Italian company but that it would be solved any day now, and to give them a call back. A couple of weeks later I rang them again. This time, nobody answered."
Jacqui said she tried to contact Sofa World Wales on Facebook messenger, but received an automated response which said the company was busy and that someone would get back to her soon. She tried several more times before she received a different automated message which said there had been a family crisis, she said.
Unable to get a response, Jacqui said she went down to the shop one morning and spoke to staff in-store. She said they were extremely apologetic and told her they would transfer the money to her soon.
However, this did not happen. Jacqui said: "I kept checking my account and the money wasn't there. I got in contact with them on messenger and they said they would do it by the end of the week and that there had been a [family issue]. However this did not happen and I have not heard from them since. I have been to the shop around four or five times, but it has been locked up."
Jacqui said she has tried to take the business to a small claims court. However, she said this has been unsuccessful because post can no longer be delivered to the address.
She said: "We haven't been able to get letters to them. I tried doing it online and they didn't respond to that either.The court tried and the post got returned as the postman couldn't deliver it. All the shutters are down.
"They kept promising us and it was so convincing to the point we felt sorry for them and thought fair enough, they are in a bit of a mess. However, now I can see it was all just a cover. It's not really about the money - it's the principle of how they treat people.
"I'm just so annoyed. How can they just treat people like that, not even with the courtesy of replying to your messages giving you false information. It's stressful and you feel frustrated. Where do we go now? Small courts didn't go anywhere either - another waste of £35."
Yvette Pope from Caerphilly said she ordered a sofa from the store in March 2021 and paid a £100 deposit on the day. She had just moved house and wanted to support local businesses to furnish her home during the pandemic. However, she said she wishes she "didn't bother now".
The 45-year-old said: "We came across the Facebook page and saw the company had a lot of excellent reviews. There was nothing that worried us or put us off. We met [a staff member] in the old premises who was lovely. I knew roughly what I wanted but needed to determine how many seats I needed and what colour I wanted."
Yvette said she was told she would be required to pay the full £1700 when a delivery date had been agreed. She said: "They promised a six to eight-week turnaround and staff were very responsive to begin with. That turned into 13 weeks. It started to get frustrating as they wouldn't answer you or let you know what the scope was."
Yvette said when a delivery date was first set, the family arranged for their old couch to be disposed of. This meant they spent around five weeks without a sofa and had to resort to sitting on the floor or on dining chairs. "They did offer us a temporary one, but we have dogs and didn't want to risk ruining it," she said.
When the sofa finally arrived in June 2021, Yvette said there were "countless issues". She said the seat pads varied in size and did not fit properly, the back cushions did not fit the sofa arm correctly and clips needed to assemble the corner sofa were missing. She said there were also several areas of loose stitching and a stain. The colour was also different to what she ordered.
"We paid the drivers £50 for delivery and they said they would report the issues back to the owners. [A staff member] rang me and said the cushions had been put on incorrectly and that they would be down the next day to fix it," she said. "They did not show up but two new delivery men did. They asked me for £50 again, but I refused as I had already paid it."
Yvette said the drivers continued to ask for the £50 and insinuated that she had not paid it. However, she told them she did pay it and the fact her sofa had been left at her house was proof. They eventually sorted it out with the company, she said.
The delivery drivers brought the hooks to fix the sofas, and eventually the company fixed the seats, Yvette said. However, the other issues were never solved. "[A staff member] told me to cut off the loose loops of fabric myself. When I said I was worried I would rip the fabric, they told me they do it all the time."
Yvette said she contacted the company on several occasions about the issues with her suite, but they either became aggressive or didn't respond at all. To this day, she said no more issues had been rectified and she is in the process of saving for a new sofa.
She said: "I had to drop complaining about the colour of the sofa as I had no proof of that, but when I contacted about the other issues I either got hostility or no correspondence. There was so much going on with my dad being ill and coronavirus that I just gave up in the end. We aren't well off, but we are lucky that we could take the loss - but it's the principle of it. You can see why people would choose to order from there as it's local and bespoke. We wish we didn't bother now as it was frustrating and tiring."
A statement on behalf of the owner's family said: "The company took a significant financial hit due to covid, and the current economic climate; rising costs, staff illness causing delays in production and delivery of materials etc. This, in addition to other factors, caused a serious mental health breakdown of the owner earlier this year.
"As such, he was unable to take an active role in the business, when his mental health deteriorated further this summer, the business had to close with immediate effect. We completely understand people's angst, and apologise to anyone affected by these awful circumstances. Nothing that has happened was intentional. The business is in the process of seeking professional advice."
They added that as a result of his mental health, the owner has been unable to fully engage in the process to wind down the business officially.
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