Office Chair Warranty

goz83

I purchased an office chair from Littlewoods in July of last year for €279. It's used for an average of 3-4 hours per day by me and I am about 95kg. I don't use the tilt function, or the height adjustment....I just sit down and get some work done. It got little, to no use from December to April because I couldn't sit for long due to back surgery. But around May/June, I noticed the chair had developed a bit of a side wobble, which had got progressively worse over the months. It now tilts from left to right by about 5 degrees and is becoming unsafe to sit on.

I contacted littlewoods yesterday. They couldn't find the order when I was chatting online. So I rang and the guy found the order. The 12 month warranty is up, so he said they can't do anything and to try contact the manufacturer. I will ring them this morning, but am I wrong to think that I deserve better than this for something that cost €279 and is not holding up structurally? There are a good few bad reviews about the chair losing the padding, making it very uncomfortable to sit on. This has happened mine too, but I wasn't bothered by it. The arm padding has gone pretty poor too, even though they rarely have any weight on them. Is a 12 month warranty reasonable, or should I expect some recourse? Item came from the UK I think.

dudara

Did you buy from Littlewoods or Living Social? Sorry, but you mention both.

Either way, assuming that you have done nothing to damage the chair, it's clearly unfit for purpose and not of merchantable quality. I would expect a far longer lifetime. Forget warranty, use your Consumer Rights to request a refund, replacement or repair.

goz83

dudara wrote: »

Did you buy from Littlewoods or Living Social? Sorry, but you mention both.

Either way, assuming that you have done nothing to damage the chair, it's clearly unfit for purpose and not of merchantable quality. I would expect a far longer lifetime. Forget warranty, use your Consumer Rights to request a refund, replacement or repair.

My mistake. It was littlewoods.....I had a living social deal open on another tab, so typed living social by accident

goz83

I contacted Littlewoods. Cutting a long story short, they want me to contact the distributor because the chair is out of warranty. I said a number of times that my contract was with Littlewoods and not the manufacturer or distributor. I'm
not getting past their policy bull, so next step is official complaint? Supervisor unavailable of course.

dudara

Yes, registered letter giving them XX days to resolve or that you'll be contacting the SCC

goz83

I sent complaint with all information, including the out of warranty statues. They have got back to me by email saying it's out of warranty but I can get an independent engineers report to see if there is a manufacturing fault and if so; they "may cover" up to €45 for the report and have the chair economically repaired or returned for a refund if repair is uneconomical. This would be a big inconvenience to bring a chair into a repair place for a report. There are other issues I mentioned about the padding going flat after a short time. Should Inbe going through the trouble of getting a report?

dudara

My instinct tells me to just go for the SCC in this instance. Pushing back for an engineer's report can be a reasonable response in some cases, but how is an "average joe" supposed to get an ergonomic armchair engineer? It feels like they're just pushing back their responsibility.

What do others think?

goz83

I replied to the email to reiterate the RRR stance, but also said I would be open to allow them arrange an inspection, deeming the request unreasonable. I would understand if it was a Laptop I was having an issue with, but an office chair engineer

goz83

So, the CC rep replied to my email. I have a busy couple of days, so have given them those couple of days. I am surprised it has gone this far. I really expected better than this....and from a company who only last week sent me €25 discount code if I spend €50 or more. I have only used them once, but my sister and aunt use them quite a lot, spending thousands per year with them. Not after this.

This is what the wrote and includes my reply.

Hi Goz

Thank you for your email.

You are correct in that it is the responsibility of the retailer to sort out the problem with your product within the first 6 months of receipt. With Littlewoods Ireland, we give you a 12 months guarantee where we will take responsibility.

However, as you reported the fault outside of our guarantee period, it is your responsibility as the consumer to prove a manufacturing defect already existed on receipt of the item. To do this, you will need to obtain an independent report to from a reputable engineer, who can provide a report on letter-headed paper.

If the item was first reported faulty in August of last year, we would have collected the item from you and ordered you a replacement under the guarantee. Since you left it until after the guarantee ended to report the item has faulty, you will need to follow this process.

I can assure you what you have been advised is compliant and is fulfilling your legal rights as the consumer.

If you have any further questions, please let us know.

Kind Regards

(name removed by OP)

Littlewoods Ireland Help Team


My Reply

Dear (removed),

I did not state that it is the responsibility of the retailer to sort out the problem within the first 6 months of receipt. Please do not misquote me. What I have said is that "the product is not of acceptable quality. It has not lasted what a reasonable person would consider to be a reasonable amount of time for a product of its value." I also said that the "product is faulty and is no longer safe to use after a short period of time. It is not fit for purpose."

What you have said in your email to me, not only misquotes me, it contravenes what is stated under the Sale of Goods Act. I would welcome a correction, where it is stated that a retailers responsibility ends after 6 months, or indeed, after a warranty period has ended.

I would be more accepting of your position if the item was at least 2 years old and with quite a bit of use, but this is not the case. I would understand the request to seek out an engineers report if the item were a Laptop computer, of something of much higher value, but we are talking about an office chair. The advise may be compliant with your policies, but I am not satisfied that it is sound, or fair advice and I cannot trust Littlewoods Ireland to cover the cost of the inspection upon discovery of a manufacturers fault.

I will waste no further time reasoning with you, as it is clear to me that the problem is not being dealt with seriously. As I have your response, I will move forward with an application to the small claims court on Thursday, after I have compiled a file to submit. I will delay my application no further than Thursday afternoon, where I hold out a slim hope that sense will prevail and Littlewoods will step up and rectify the problem.

Furthermore, I will be closing my account when this has been settled and will share my experience on and offline. I find it interesting that I was unable to leave a review of the chair on my Littlewoods account, but there are many other consumer aware websites where consumers can be informed of such things.

Regards,

Goz

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

goz83

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Registered letter of complaint was sent, as well as the email to give them the max time. I had allowed 15 working days (5 more than recommended by consumer help). The 2 days now being given would be because they have already replied with their intention not to resolve the issue. I don't see anything threatening in what I have written (though you may be generalising). I doubt they will reply, but I think it's only right to give a couple of extra days.

MOH

I've had office chairs from Viking for 50 quid that the padding got worn on after a few year, but the chairs were still fine structurally. For €279 I'd be expecting something that would last a lot longer than a year's usage. I'd definitely go the SCC route if you're given them enough time to respond properly to the registered letter.

goz83

MOH wrote: »

I've had office chairs from Viking for 50 quid that the padding got worn on after a few year, but the chairs were still fine structurally. For €279 I'd be expecting something that would last a lot longer than a year's usage. I'd definitely go the SCC route if you're given them enough time to respond properly to the registered letter.

Ditto. One of my colleagues had one of those viking chairs for €50. He had it 3 years with about 20 hours of use per week and he wasn't exactly light. The same chair is now in my sons room the past month.The only thing wrong with it is a bit of wear on the corner of the padding, but you'd hardly notice it.

I'm pretty disgusted at Littlewoods actually. But I am wondering if I should wait for the registered letter period to expire, or if I should take their last answer and move with the SCC on Thursday.

goz83

So I just call a call from a nice lady in the Dublin branch. My registered letter was received and she is arranging a return, but it will take a few days to get done. I asked if they were planning to have the chair repaired, replaced, or refunded. She said it would go to the UK and they would look at it, but she wanted to get the ball rolling for me. I told her about the email responses I had and she said not to worry, that I had been given the wrong information. So, someone knows about customer care at least it would seem.

goz83

So the lady kept me updated. Chair was collected and a refund cheque was issued. I would have been satisfied with a replacement, but might have had a similar issue, so now I need to source a new chair.

goz83

I had a problem with a chair I purchased from Littlewoods and customer care were fobbing me off, which can be seen in this thread.

The cut throat version is that the chair was out of manufacturer warranty, but was just over a year old and had been failing for some time. Littlewoods eventually collected the chair and refunded me.

Just now, I received a letter from Littlewoods Operations Director. It is an apology and a good one at that. It had enclosed a €100 One4All voucher for me to spend anywhere I like

Fair play to Littlewoods. It's a very welcome turnout and good customer service deserves every bit of recognition as the bad. They didn't need to do what they did, so they have won me back, even though I have only ever purchased the chair from them!

dudara

Merged into the original thread for continuity.

That's a fantastic piece of customer service from Littlewoods, and a nice little treat to get just before Christmas! Thanks for coming back to update us.