CARE Re. FURNITURE DELIVERY

If you are elderly, infirm, disabled or just on your own – BEWARE - if you order furniture for delivery from Argos it could end up on your drive if the Argos delivery men decide they are don’t want to take it into your house!
We ordered a single bed and paid for it to be delivered. An Argos van arrived; two men got the bed out one carrying the base, the other the mattress. The one carrying the mattress proceeded to walk across a wet lawn despite there being plenty of room to come up the drive, he put the mattress down in the porch looked at the carpet in the hall and called out to his mate that it was “white”. He then proceeded to push the mattress from the porch halfway into the hall and the second man then put the base down half in the porch and half on the drive. I asked if they were just going to leave it there at which the second man said they weren’t going to walk on our carpet because they may have dirt on their shoes, then leaned into the house from the porch and said they wouldn’t take it upstairs anyhow as the stairs had a turn in them.

I was surprised by this response as we had had a king sized and a double bed delivered by
Argos during the last 18 months and on both occasions the men had delivered the beds right
into the bedrooms with no fuss – same carpet same turn in the stairs.
If Argos provides a delivery service for beds/furniture etc. which entails entering a house then why do they not provide drivers with overshoes/shoe protectors like most other people who have to deliver into your home? Most stairs have a bend somewhere either at the bottom or the top or indeed like ours at a half landing in the middle - it has never been a problem for other furniture delivery companies and indeed was not a problem for the previous Argos men when they delivered two much larger beds.
When I finally got through to the “Directors Team” to complain I was told that delivery into the house is totally at the discretion of the delivery men if they decide the carpet is too light or the stairs have a bend in them then they can refuse to bring the furniture into the house. I asked what would happen if when the delivery men arrived they found the householder was disabled and I was told the position was exactly the same if the delivery men decided that they did not want to bring the item into the house then they could refuse and presumably the item would stay on the drive!
I realise that somewhere buried in all the small print of the terms and conditions there will be a clause allowing Argos to do this but come on if Argos are going to sell furniture and offer a delivery service then they should deliver into the house, other furniture stores do.
So if you are disabled, elderly or just on your own and you don’t want your new three piece suite or bed left on your drive then the message is simple DON’T BUY IT FROM Argos!