Wharfside Furniture Store - www.wharfside.co.uk

I purchased a solid wood shoe store cabinet (3,400 pounds) from the Leatherhead branch just 3 years ago. I have recently contacted them to say that the VENEER is coming away around the handle making it unusable in case the VENEER all cracks off. Their reply was for me to send them 400.00 pounds and the door and they would get it repaired!No apologies no explanation.

Shameless and stunningly poor Customer Care. I have Duresta sofas,and Poggenpol kitchen furniture years older snd still as good as new. 30 years ago we fitted Tapley furniture in the study, its still there, looking old and tatty but its all in tact and the wood is in perfect condition.I wont be replacing with stuff from Team 7 or Wharfeside.

Ordered an entertainment unit/bookshelves from them. The order was made in July 2016 and was supposed to be delivered in October 2016. While the unit was initially delivered in October 2016, its panel was not the correct size and required 4 additional visits and 3 months to complete. To be fair to them a lot of the faults lies with Team 7 who did not supply the correct order in the first place and was also incompetent in providing the correct replacements (panel was too tall, and their replacement was even taller than the first one) so they had to alter the panel themselves. Nevertheless it is extremely worrying that they failed to communicate clearly with their supplier, especially when the project is not for some off-the-shelve furniture but a bespoke one.

The many visits resulted in the unit being taken apart and put back together multiple times. This along with one of the delivery guy's shaky hands with a power tool left marks on the unit. Thus, whilst the bookshelves/entertainment unit seems sturdy enough, I don't think it is worth its price tag, especially not considering the extra three months I had to have the incomplete unit sitting in my living-room being completely useless.

Their customer service was rather hit and miss. I initially visited their Leatherhead showroom, where the salesman appeared to be very nice and told me to give them a call once I know the exact dimensions of the unit. However, once I did call them that the person who answered my call was rather rude and gave me talk down about how I didn't understand that the furniture is specially custom made and any discussion via phone was useless. After the initially delivery they would tell me that they will give me an update on the order by a certain time, but it usually ended up with me asking them for the update after they deadline they set. Lastly, when the order was finally completed I was told that due to the experience with this order they would consider giving me a discount on a future order. I found it rather insulting that they would imagine I'd want to purchase anything else form them after this mess.

In January we decided to buy some Stressless furniture (2 x sofas, 1 x chair, 2 x footstools) - which had been a long term ambition. We went to various stockists and ended up buying at Wharfside and wished we hadn't. When the furniture arrived it was minus two footstools and no-one gave us any warning that this was the case.

When the delivery was made the delivery team expressed surprise and dislike of the fact that the delivery was up two flights of stairs, despite the fact that this had been explained to the salesman and I had even gone to the trouble of measuring all the hallways and stairs to make sure they could get the furniture into the building and up to our flat.

Furthermore, prior to the agreed delivery date I had emailed them to say I would be out of the country and would effect payment by bank transfer rather than paying via card on the day of the delivery. The delivery supervisor got angry on the phone with my wife and despite having been told I was abroad then phoned me on my mobile to complain that they had not been paid. He got quite shouty and aggressive which is not a good way to deal with customers who have spent a lot of money with you. He also expected (demanded) full payment but I said I would withhold payment for the footstools until they were delivered. I made the adjusted payment by bank transfer the next day on my return to the UK as I had agreed to do.

The following week I made my dis-satisfaction with the whole thing known to the salesman who promised to call me back with more details on the footstools. Despite him promising to call me back personally the assistant called me which suggests a lack of integrity or willingness to deal with any sale already made. She said they would do everything possible to make me a satisfied customer, I said that in order to do that they should discount the footstools. When I pursued this line I was told this can't be done.

The footstools did arrive within a couple of weeks but the whole experience turned buying a high end, luxury item (Stressless furniture), from a pleasure into a pain. My impression of Wharfside is that they are a slick sales operation with poor customer service. My recommendation is go there to see a good range of Stressless, decide what you want and then get written quotes - you will get Stressless cheaper & with much better service.

The Stressless product is a superb, high-end product. The quality of the product should be matched by the quality of the service but Wharfside don't understand this.