Pat Oldbury's had her old couch for 20 years, so in February she decided it was time to cut her ties with it - a faithful servant whose time had come.
Because of her increasing mobility issues, Pat wanted to buy an adjustable chair which would be easy to get in and out of, plus a couch, from Nick Scali in Wairau Park, Auckland.
She and her daughter Vanessa visited the store on Pat’s 83rd birthday and paid a $1350 deposit.
Delivery time was estimated at 11 to 13 weeks.
Thirteen weeks arrived and went, and the delivery got pushed out a few more weeks to the end of May.
Nick Scali then said that delivery would be in mid-July, hopefully.
They said that Covid-related delivery issues had blown a 13-week wait out to 23 weeks, and possibly longer.
Fed up, Pat tried to get her deposit back so she could buy local, but the store said the furniture was all “custom made” so could not be rejected, and no refund was available.
Vanessa said the staff were unhelpful and inflexible.
Now in a case like this, consumer law allows you to reject goods if a retailer hasn't lived up to their side of the deal and supplied the goods within an agreed time.
It’s not so clear-cut with custom-made furniture, because it is made to a client's exact specifications, which can make it hard to on-sell to someone else.
However, in this case, it wasn’t custom-made furniture, it was made-to-order furniture.
It seems Nick Scali don't seem to hold a lot of stock, so manufacture their pieces as orders come in.
With made-to-order furniture we’d say yes, the customer is able to reject the goods in a case like this.
Nick Scali has told us that it's furniture is actually made well within the time frames but deliveries are being severely impacted by Covid lockdowns, resulting in shipping, container shortages and closed ports.
They say it is their responsibility to communicate timeframes to every customer - they agreed that their service had not been up to standard and are going to retrain their staff.
And they agreed to fully refund Pat and apologised for the way she had been treated.
They will deal with other customers on a case-by-case basis and supplied this email address for those waiting for long-overdue deliveries: deliverydelays@nickscali.co.nz
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