A furniture firm has been slammed by an angry homeowner after they failed to properly deliver a new sofa and instead discarded it on a staircase. Luke Ansell had just moved into his new £500,000 home in Bournemouth in December when he purchased the sofa which cost him £2,000 from a Birmingham firm.
The attempted delivery was made on January 19 and delivery men had reassured him they do tight deliveries 'all the time' in reference to the homeowners narrow staircase, Birmingham Mail reports. However, the designersofasforyou.co.uk staff failed to transport the brand new sofa bed up the stairs so they decided to just abandon it.
Luke, 27, claims they insisted they had to leave so they could arrive back at the company's offices in Birmingham on time. He has criticised the company for their 'shocking' customer service and claims that they've damaged his staircase as well as the new couch.
He said: "Honestly it was unbelievable, the sofa was over £2,000 and they caused about that much damage delivering it. They got here and I showed them where I wanted it upstairs. I said that it looked quite tight, but they assured me that they do tight deliveries all the time.
"I just said 'oh well you're the experts' - they are a delivery company after all so I just left them to it. They brought it in, they struggled to get it over the bannister and eventually got it in.
"But then it got jammed, they couldn't get it up or down. Then they said 'look we've got to get back to Birmingham' and tried to leave. They asked me to sign for the delivery - but I refused.
"We had a little bit of an argument about it, and then they suggested I cut away the bannister to get it out. It's a brand new house that we had just bought for half a million, and now we have to have the work done to repair it.
"Then they just left it there and went back to Birmingham. The drivers also said they didn't even try to get it up the stairs, but I have actual doorbell footage of them after they delivered it to my house. I have a photo of them at the bottom of the stairs after the damage was done too.
"They've destroyed the plasterboard, and damaged all of the wooden skirting on the stairway. They've also damaged the sofa too. It was just a shocking response by the company - so I'm just trying to raise awareness about their standards of service."
The Birmingham-based company told the BBC they were carrying out an 'interval investigation' following the incident. The BBC reported that the firm had emailed Mr Ansel back and claimed the sofa had been 'left in a safe place on the landing' before offering to replace the damaged sofa as a 'goodwill gesture'.
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