Oak Furnitureland

This company might go bust, so do not give them your money.

Showroom furniture looked great, but they were unable to
Deliver the furniture in the same condition. We placed 3 orders:

Order 1, for a desk, was no problem. 1 day off work for 1
Delivery.

Order 2, for a small bedroom suite, big cracks in chest of
Drawers and small cracks in wardrobe. Chest replaced and wardrobe fixed by
Waxing and polishing in the cracks! 3 days off work, for 2 deliveries and a
Repair visit.

Order 3 for a large bedroom suite, big cracks in wardrobe.
Replaced wardrobe, which also had big cracks in it. 3 days off work for 2
Deliveries and a collection we returned our suite in it's entirety for a
Refund, under the consumer goods act.

BrOak Furnitureland tried to charge us £65 to collect order
3. "No way" says we, "if you do not collect it we will delivery it back to your
Store and charge you for our costs, and the refund must reach us with 14 days
Of collection/delivery or we will file court action".

Needless to say, they collected the furniture, but no
Communication about the refund, zilch, nada, nil, zero, and +30 days later no
Refund received. Court action has now been filed and we now have to wait for
Settlement, judgement, or the liquidators to distribute assets, of an insolvent
BrOak Furnitureland. Which one it will be, we have no idea, but until we get our
Money, and that is also an IF we get our money', we will have to wait to place
An order elsewhere with a reputable furniture dealership.

So ordered and paid for furniture in early February and the
Best we can now hope for is a prompt refund/settlement, and some new furniture
Being delivered by the end of May. The worst case is no refund/settlement and a
Miserly creditors' amount from the liquidators if BrOak Furnitureland do go
Bust; for to us, we cannot see how a company with such large premises, and so
Many sales people, such high overheads, can possibly make a profit based on our
Experiences.

2 stars for smooth ordering and delivery systems.

Received bookcase yesterday. Seems to be solid oak but the wood is very thin -- bookshelves are more like slats instead of boards and the shelves rest on tiny metal brackets that are wood-screwed into the shelves. There is a deep 1 1/2 inch gash in frame of my bookcase. And a glued dowel joint above the bottom drawer had pulled out of the frame and tore away a piece of wood. I am going to try returning the bookcase. It is poor quality and I won't deal with this company again. I read that years ago the company did produce quality merchandise.

A nightmare from start to finish
We have purchased from OFL a number of times over the years and had no problem with the service provided or quality of furniture supplied. Of course, this was prior to OFL being taken over by Davidson Kempner. The company has now clearly lost interest in customer care and their product quality which has drastically declined. So, having ordered 2 settees on 12/11/22 with a 17 week wait time as manufactured in Vietnam, we received them in March only to find half of the recliner settee was a different colour and material. We couldn't believe this but it apparently happens more often than you would think. We also couldn't believe the delivery guys broke our front door threshold and didn't even have the decency to tell us! We were eventually passed to OFL's customer relations team as customer services were not helpful. The settees were reordered and we were assured we would have a smooth journey moving forward as the customer relations team would now oversee the replacement order and this time the settees would go through a rigid quality check to ensure they were not substandard, faulty or a mismatch. When we received the replacement settees 17 weeks later in July (after they went through the quality check) one shoulder of the 2 seater did not slot in properly leaving an unsightly gap and the 3 seater electric recliner settee made an horrendous screeching noise which worsened the more the recliner button was pressed. At least the fabric matched this time! Homeserve were sent out to inspect and advised the motor was operating correctly and the noise was due to the settee being over padded causing the fabric to rub! The technician proved this by separating the two sections and operating the recliners and sure enough, no screeching noise. He said the noise MAY fade through time but could not guarantee this. We could not believe we were in this position, especially when the settees had "allegedly" been quality checked. Turns out the "quality check" was just to ensure the pieces matched – the settees were not fully assembled with recliner mechanism inspection. We therefore cancelled the order. A time slot of between 7pm-10pm was allocated for the collection of the OFL faulty settees. Again, not happy as we didn't want strangers in our house when we were about to go to bed but this is just another example of the disrespect OFL show customers. We shouldn't have had that time slot forced on us. We then discovered the settees would go to landfill, again this is not uncommon. An environmentally responsible business? …. I think not. Regarding customer care, you are not given a specific customer relations team member to deal with your issues which simply adds to the frustration. Every time I sent an email seeking information, I found a missed call on my phone. I repeatedly advised my phone is on silent as it is not convenient for me to take calls and that I want written responses to my emails but this instruction was ignored. I have never experienced a company who respond to emails be telephone, very unprofessional. There was also a great deal of inaccurate information provided that I had to seek clarity on, again frustrating. On the occasions I was forced to call them in response to voice mail messages, I was left on hold for long periods before eventually getting through only to then be bombarded with securing questions before they would discuss what "they" called me about! At the end of this fiasco I was advised as the order was cancelled there is nothing to offset financial compensation to so we were "awarded" an OFL in store voucher (don't laugh). This was to compensate for the months of stress, anxiety, inconvenience, upset, telephone conversations and the vast paper trail of emails. A voucher is of course useless to us as we will never shop with OFL again but guess what …… we can inflict pain on others by giving it to someone else to use! Will NEVER purchase from OFL again.

They rang just before customer service finished for the night and day bridge delivery to say they had lost my sofas and would not be making my delivery could not offer alternative only wanted to hold onto my money and might deliver sometime
In the future not sure when, couldn't understand why I would be unhappy with that! They have my money I have no furniture and they are not interested in finding a solution what a mess

Recently purchased a 2 seater sofa bed. The shop staff were very helpful. The item was delivered on time and quickly.

I haven't used the sofa bed yet as I was decorating the bedroom, when I did unwrap it one of the back legs has snapped off. I called them and the staff were really polite, they sent the new leg and I was told to call again when I received it. I don't really know why they couldn't have just booked a call for me there and then. However I called back and was then contacted by their service department and they said they would call me when I had received the part they had just ordered! I said I already have the part so we booked an appointment for this Tuesday 13th.

In all the process to have this tiny part put back on has taken about 3 weeks. I paid over £800 for the sofa and I haven't been able to use it. It's still stuck in the wrapping

This has put a bit of negativity on the experience which otherwise was really good!

They really need to offer a quicker service for repairs.

I have an order already and rang yesterday to an an item to my order but as I have protection on the first bit of the order I cant add to it unless I take out protection on the extra piece of furniture which I didnt want or need so the only option is to place another order which is fine but then they wont deliver it together which means I would have to wait in twice! Which is both silly for them having to return to my house twice within a few days and a waste of my time too, so because you simply couldnt do a straight forward transaction and add an extra piece of furniture to my existing order Or let me pick up the smaller item from the store, you lost a £350 sale today! Your loss

Do not buy, you will regret, believe me I have.
After sales does not exist and the quality of the furniture is inferior. They pay a lot for the advert and this will draw you in. The in store sales team are unable and unwilling to adsust. Leeds Crown point West Yorkshire.

First off. The information given by the "sales assistant" was very misleading. "Oh every piece of furniture I sell is guaranteed to be the same colour". What she really meant was, "everything I persuade you to buy earns me good commission". Table that was delivered was nothing like the sample in the showroom." We don't do a six foot by three foot in that style " What she really meant was, we don't have one in the showroom at present. "if you're not entirely satisfied you can exchange goods or request a refund". HOWEVER WE WILL CHARGE YOU FOR STUFF YOU RETURN AAAANNDDD YOU MUST KEEP ALL OF THE ORIGINAL PACKAGING IN THE SAME CONDITION THAT IT WAS BEFORE YOU UNPACKED IT. The first table, (5ft x 2ft 6in), was a different style and colour so I ordered and paid for a six foot x three foot and two extra chairs (in the same style... colour not guaranteed). Delivered free of charge as per policy, BUT have to pay the same delivery driver £50 to take away the other one. Given that I'm 73 years old and suffering from heart failure, cancer, arthritis and other numerous age related illnesses, maybe I should have just invested my hard earned savings in a nice solid oak coffin instead. Nb. It took two big guys to carry the boxes into the house. My wife, who is also disabled and myself were left to unpack and assemble the table. Unfortunately we couldn't wait for family to do this due to restrictions on the time allowed to notify OFL of any complaints. Worse still was trying to remove the packaging from the sideboard, which by the way we are very happy with. Try to lift it out from the top. IMPOSSIBLE! Needed to turn upside down, open carton, and then stand the right way up and slide the carton off. Tried reasoning with the monkey on the phone (after being on hold for 22 minutes) could not speak to the organ grinder. REF waiving return fee. I recommend banging you're head against the wall at least you get a result even if it's only a severe headache

Apologies in advance to readers for the length of this review. If you want to learn the truth about this company, read on and don't be fooled by its 'jokey' TV commercials.
We ordered a wardrobe and two chests of drawer (a 7-drawer and a 5-drawer) from Oak Furniture Land (OFL) on 18 August 2015 for delivery on 3 September. I was due to start a new job in a new location and I believed equipping a recently bought flat would be an exciting prospect. I parted with £1407. 40 which included a 5-year warranty with Furniture-Guard. Big mistake.

When the order was unpacked in September the wardrobe and 7-drawer were both badly damaged. I was heart-broken. The 5-drawer, whilst not damaged, did not look as well made as the furniture on display in the showroom, but we decided to stick with it. Bigger mistake. OFL agreed to replace both damaged items. Close inspection of the wardrobe showed less than professional workmanship, again not up to the expected quality of a £500 item of furniture and we opted not to replace it. A very fortunate choice, it turned out.

The replacement 7-drawer when unpacked two weeks later was more damaged than the first with cracks in one corner so wide I could slip a £1 coin into it! Despite cubic metres of polystyrene padding it had clearly been dropped and there were stress fractures in several places. Turns out our furniture was handmade in India and shipped here in containers. OFL offered us £100 in compensation if we agreed to keep it. Alarms bells were now ringing.

With the 5-drawer packed tightly with our clothes and the remainder scattered around our new flat we were becoming increasingly frustrated with the attitude of OFL 'after sales' staff. We wanted to return the 5-drawer and we wanted our money back so that we could buy near identical, better made and less expensive furniture from a local furniture store. OFL claimed that because the 5-drawer had been in our possession for 7 days we had no choice but to keep it. We argued that we would not be able to find matching furniture with the same shade of cream paint. OFL showed no sympathy and the company's ruthless streak came to the fore. Despite accepting the fault was with OFL for delivering damaged furniture they insisted we could not return the unbroken item. We were forced into a corner and had no option but to accept a second replacement 7-drawer (third delivery).
When the third delivery (7-drawer) was unpacked on 8 October it was not broken, but it did have black marks on the oak top which had to be removed by a professional from Furniture-Guard (who did an excellent job) and the drawers were ill-fitting. Two of the three top drawers had tiny gaps between the drawer and the surround, the third middle drawer had much bigger gaps on both sides and looked unsightly - not what you would expect to pay £400 for! But as the man from Furniture-Guard pointed out to me OFL accept workmanship within a 10% tolerance. For those unfamiliar with this term it means that a 30 cm wide drawer (such as ours) would be deemed acceptable by OFL if it had a 3cm wide gap around it! That's well over the width - not the depth - of a 10 pence piece! It beggars belief, but it's true.

We asked for compensation and were told, "OFL doesn't offer compensation, we prefer to resolve issues." I replied by saying, "But you're not resolving our issues, you're only making them worse!" The girl at the other end of the telephone did not have an answer to this in her manual and remained silent for an eternity. Eventually after many hours of complaint we were offered a miserly £30 compensation.

Following up the compensation, reimbursement for the wardrobe and insurance for the latter became an issue in itself. I was so cross, upset and frustrated after 9 weeks of dealing with OFL I finally demanded on 22 October if we didn't receive compensation that very day we would use the Small Claims Court to retrieve the money which OFL owed us. I asked for clarification three times and was categorically promised the money had been paid into my credit card account that same day. Of course there is no way of proving it because it takes up to 3 days 'to clear'. The following day I received a call from the finance dept. of OFL asking for my bank details to make a payment. "That was done yesterday," I said. "No it wasn't," came the reply. You guessed it, the girl I spoke to the previous day had clearly been very liberal with the truth... not once, not twice but on three occasions!

We now find we're stuck with expensive handmade furniture which we don't want. It's clear that once some companies have your money in their possession you cease to be a customer.

Of course you might order from OFL and be one of the lucky ones! If you do insist on buying from OFL, be sure to ask what percentage of deliveries arrive undamaged and remember, the best quality furniture is reserved for the showrooms.

Ps we did buy furniture from our local supplier for the living room and learned that many of its customers use the same local supplier's services to repair damaged/poorly made OFL furniture. That says it all.

Pps I tried to post this on the OFL website, but after a week it didn't appear... I wonder why? I also wonder why every review on the OFL website is glowing when reviews elsewhere are damning?

From finding our console tables during a random web search to their delivery, OakFurnitureLand was a class act - absolutely the way internet sales should work! The website was clean, clear, and easy to navigate. We had questions - and we were able to call and speak with a knowledgeable human! Our tables were shipped when we were told they would be, and at each step we were apprised of their location and updated on when to expect delivery. The tables arrived in tip-top condition and were delivered by 2 well-spoken deliverymen after they called and told us they were on their way. When I mentioned to the delivery men that they worked for a class company - both OakFurnitureLand and Ryder Last Mile trucking, they acknowledged they made many deliveries on behalf of OakFurnitureLand - seems many other purchasers agree with us on the quality of furniture.

Bought 2 pieces last year and 4 more today. Absolutely love it, sturdy, spacious and delivery was fast. Delivery was right on time and guys were great.