Feb 20, 2009 06:00 PM
18035 Views
(Updated Sep 08, 2009 11:04 AM)
I went to a furniture exhibition in Hyderabad. I loved the desings of Inhabit Furnitures - they had this contemporary and plush look. The items were priced very high, but they offered handsome discounts. I booked a leather sofa by depositing 5K at the exhibition.
I later visited their store at Banjara Hills along with my husband another couple friend of ours to short-list and buy the sofa. We both liked a dark brown leather sofa and we placed our respective orders for the same item.
Of course, like any other plush store they treated us very well and ensured about the quality of the product. Moreover, we were paying through our noses - this was expensive stuff. This sofa (3+2) was originally priced at Rs. 80, 000 and was offered to us at 55, 000.
They delivered the sofa in a couple of weeks and both the families got rave reviews from everyone on the looks of the furniture. However, after just 3-4 months, the "leather" started wearing off from the hand-rest. Fearing some rough usage we started avoiding using that side of sofa. But the wearing continued and in no time we started seeing cuts all over the cushions!
We called our friends to check how their sofas were faring and were shocked to learn that they too were facing the same problem! We have kids and our usage is more but this friend couple do not have children, both of them are working, there is hardly any usage of the sofa!
We visited the store and told them about the issue. We took along the sofa cushion to show them. The manager their said he could fix the problem but would charge us Rs.8, 000 per cushion for the repair! That would mean a cool 1, 12, 000 to fix five sitting cushions, 5 back rest cushions and 4 hand rest cushions! I was flabbergasted and explained that we bought the sofa only 6 months back.
He said his response would have been the same even if we would have come back after 2 months! He refused to take any responsibility of the wear and tear of furniture. They do not manufacture everything at their store and there is a possibility of a poor quality product coming in their catalogue but the worst part of the entire experience was their refusal to own up the mistake and their nonchalant attitude towards this whole issue.
We contacted another furniture store in the hope of getting the repair done at a cheaper price. To our utter surprise we found out that the sofa is not complete leather! Only sitting cushions were made in leather and rest all was rexene! We felt so cheated and vulnerable that we decided to move to consumer court against the store.
They have ignored 2 requests from consumer forum and 1 court notice so far. But we will not give-up and continue fighting till we get justice. Our friends have also decided to join us and file a consumer court case against the store. Looking at the pathetic quality of their stuff I am sure there are many others who have wasted their hard earned money on their products and have not done anything.
We urge all such people to come together and join us in this fight against businesses who take customers for granted. They know their plush stores and shining new products will find takers - no matter how pathetic their product quality or how non-responsive their customer support is. We got to change this.
UPDATE - We have won the consumer court case against this store in district court. The store owner refuse to pay and filed an appeal at state level. We have won the case at state level also and are now waiting for the owner to pay up. The stubborn owner is still not paying up but we are not going to leave him till he coughs up our hard-earned money.
