Cannot fulfill orders - best to avoid

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Furniture at Work www.furnitureatwork.co.uk
★☆☆☆☆
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10.0% of users recommend this
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1987Rasmussen's review of Furniture at Work www.furnitureatwork.co.uk

“Cannot fulfill orders - best to avoid”

★☆☆☆☆

written by 1987Rasmussen on 15/07/2020

Elements of the numerous other bad reviews are echoed in my experience i.e. significant delays in delivery, inability to contact customer service, no responses from the company to emails/voicemails/online contact forms, no proactive and certainly no honest communication of what is actually going on.
The truth seems to be that despite the messaging on the website, there is little/no stock availability, you won’t get your item assembled and you will struggle getting all or partial refunds if you are not willing to wait for the delayed item.
I want to give the person I dealt with in customer service some positive feedback though as he was the only person who offered a life-line and seemed genuinely apologetic. Nevertheless, I suspect his hands are tied and I will never see the partial refund that was promised.
All in all a very stressful, time-consuming experience and I am left feeling very disappointed. I also feel very sad for all the other hundreds/thousands of customers in the same position who are suffering with no information and no signs of a positive outcome. I would recommend that you shop elsewhere using a company with more integrity and honesty.

My experience:
• Order placed for Cream Skye Executive Chair on 29th May with Furniture at Work. £86+VAT for item. Plus £20+VAT for assembly. Delivery expected in two weeks.
• Two weeks later, email received from Furniture at Work Customer Service to indicate a delay and that the new delivery date would be Friday 26th June. Telephoned Customer Service who confirmed this.
• Friday 26th June. Telephoned Customer Service to check that the item was due for delivery today. Told that there was nothing on the system to indicate any delay and that they would check with the warehouse and if any problems I would be telephoned back. No further communication and no item received.
• Monday 29th June. Telephoned Customer Service (held for 2*30minutes and then put through to voicemail service), emailed Customer Service, filled in online customer care form. No responses to email, voicemail or online form. Telephoned Customer Service at 5pm and after holding for 25minutes I did get to speak to someone. They said they were still waiting for an update from the Warehouse.
• Tuesday 30th June. Further attempted calls, holding for 30muinutes before being cut off. Further emails. No responses. Telephoned Customer Service at 5pm and spoke with the person I dealt with. I raised concerns after reading all the negative online reviews for the company. Very apologetic. He said the same as per the previous day i.e. they were waiting for an update from their warehouse. I asked for the warehouse contact details and said I’d try calling them myself.
• Called and emailed the warehouse. Open and honest dialogue with them with visibility of their order system and a clear explanation of the problem. There are 250 orders for my one specific item in “backorder” on their order system i.e. they are out of stock. They have repeatedly made Furniture at Work aware of this. I was lucky as there was one “free stock” item waiting allocation on the system and I got allocated to it.
• Thursday 2nd July – after further communications with them confirming that the item was the same and in good repair, the item was received. The item was flat-packed and not assembled. They have made Furniture at Work aware that assembly for any order is not possible right now due to staff shortages and the Covid-19 pandemic. I accepted the flat-packed item.
• Friday 3rd July – item successfully assembled. It was complete and in good repair. Contacted Furniture at Work to update them. Spoke to the person I dealt with again. I asked him for a partial refund for the assembly cost (£20+VAT). I was told this would be confirmed within 2-3 days and then the funds should be in my bank within 5 days of that.
• Tuesday 7th June – sent email to Furniture at Work following up on this. No response. No refund.
• Wednesday 15th June – 10 working days after being promised a partial refund I have had no communications from Furniture at Work and no refund has been received. The item is still available to buy on the website but the assembly option is not available to select which is something positive for the unsuspecting prospective customer.

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