Just over a year ago we purchased the Andria sofa package from Argos direct. When they arrived everything seemed fine until 5 months down the line the arm collapsed leaving jagged wood protruding from the underside of the sofa, (not good when you have a small baby crawling around). We contacted Argos who sent out an upholsterer who said that the timber used was totally unsuitable as it was full of Knots and therefore very weak. On receiving the reports Argos sent replacement sofas out and we thought at the time that this was good customer service. But another 6 months down the line and the exact same thing happened again. Now this time Argos have been anything but accommodating. At first they tried to accuse us of Jumping on the arms. Then they tried to say that they were out of warranty, until we pointed out that the warranty runs again for 12 months ion the replacement items, not the original, as it is a statutory guarantee on the product. After this Argos finally decided they would send out an upholsterer again. eventually he came out after many phone calls to premium rate numbers chasing him up (I must state this was Argos's fault, the upholsterer was very good). On examining the sofas for 5mins the upholsterer again confirmed that poor quality timber was to blame, as it had broke again across a knot, and he also said that the arm should be designed to take the wait of a seated person, and that this one would not have taken the weight of a child. He then confirmed that he would send the report to Argos who would contact us about a replacement. This again took 2 weeks and several phone calls to get agreed, and that a we would be contact shortly with a date for delivery of the replacements. we waited for 3 weeks and phoned again after not hearing anything to be told that there is a 28 day lead time from agreement to delivery, which we should have been told in the first place. So we then waited until 3 days before this time and phoned again to be told that it was unlikely we would get the sofa within this time scale as they were waiting for them to come into stock (Bare in mind this is an item prominently advertised in there new catalogue and according to them as not been available from catalogue release and is still not available several months on.) the lady on the phone was actually very understanding and agreed that we should be offered an alternative replacement as it was unacceptable, and that she would get one of the managers to phone us back which he did. However this guy was anything but understanding, as all he would say was well we say 28 days, but that is subject to stock availability and it could be much longer and we would just have to wait. I suggested about an alternative replacement and he just replied, we don't do that. In fact he was just like a recorded message, saying over and over that there was a 28 days lead time and that we would just have to wait, not ever understanding that this time was all but up, and basically unless they got stock in overnight, phoned us up and sent it straight out the next day this would have been impossible to meet. When I said that this was not good enough he just said well that's how it is. During this whole conversation we received one well practised out of the book apology on first answering the phone and then nothing else. After saying that we would talk to trading standards, his reply was that's up to you. I then asked for his name to which he just replied with a common first name, and on request I was told that he would give his surname as we did not require it (Funny how we always have to give our full name before they will even speak to you) and an extension number without any main number to attach it to. So now we have got to just sit (albeit it on a sofa that could collapse at any time) and twiddle our thumbs while we wait to hear. On top of this the recorded message always starts with all calls are recorded for safety and training purposes, but when previous calls are mentioned, the standard reply is 'I have no record of that call on the system'. This is proved by the fact that on every occasion we have had to give our contact phone numbers again, as they did not have them listed, even though they were taken every time.
well one thing is for certain, if the sofas are replaced eventually or not, we (and anyone we know) will not be shopping at Argos again.
I would be interested to here if anybody else as had the same problems with this shoddy company.
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