Hammonds Furniture
reviews and complaints

Truly awful customer service. They TWICE rescheduled our fitting, which meant that we had to sleep in the spare bedroom for a MONTH and we had to reschedule the carpet fitting, which cost us an additional £70. The fitter couldn't complete the fitting as one wardrobe door was MISSING and another door and a standalone unit were DAMAGED. Despite repeated attempts to get though to their customer service dept by phone and email we have had ZERO response from Hammonds to say when we can expect the replacement parts. We also have a load of rubbish stacked in our drive but again, no contact to say when this is going to be disposed of. We used Hammonds about 12 or 13 years ago and were pleased with their service, but on our latest experience we could not recommend them. I am reliably informed that our experience has been typical of the past 6 months at Hammonds. Hammonds are showing all the signs of a company that has supply chain problems, which typically go hand in hand with cash flow problems. Beware giving your money to this company! Wish we'd only paid a small deposit and only paid the balance on successful completion. Lesson learned, as they now think they have us over a barrel.

Account no CM946
I ordered fitted furniture for my daughters bedroom . The fitter arrived six hours late in a very bad mood. He was rude, offhand and offensive. My daughter was upset and shaken by his behaviour. I phoned customer service three times and sent three emails and only after threatening to cancel the order did another fitter complete the installation. On the day of completion I received an email requesting the final payment. I immediately phoned customer service to say that I wanted to speak to a manager prior to making the final payment. Three weeks later I am still waiting for that phone call. My daughter then decided that she required a set of drawers in one of the wardrobes instead of a hanging rail. I therefore ordered a set via the designer. I have not received either a courtesy phone call or confirmation of my order for the extra drawers. My daughter and I are already under considerable stress due to her waiting to go into hospital and do not need further stress caused by Hammonds. The resolution I require is to draw a line under this whole saga with a phone call, the installation of the drawers and making the final payment.

Don't expect your lovely bedroom furniture to last more than a year. With mine the plastic wrapping is peeling off. You would expect that there would be no problem because they claim a 10 year guarantee. No chance. They are not the slightest bit interested. I even wrote to the CEO by recorded mail and he didn't even have the courtesy to reply ! DO NOT deal with this company if you want to use your furniture for more than a year.

My mistake in committing myself to Hammond's furniture is that I have failed to take seriously the many complaining stories on the internet about Hammonds. "They must be hard-to-please customers, " I told myself .
I would have had a similar suite of bedroom furniture from Barker and Stonehouse for less than half the price I pay Hammonds. Given the reputation of the latter as a premium furniture provider, I thought I was paying for the quality. I could not have been more wrong.
The designer came twice and the surveyors three times because of various miscommunication. The joiner partially put up the furniture then took them down in one bedroom and then did the same in another because of some specified or unspecified errors.
Another joiner came back for the first room two weeks later to give another try. When I heard him spending long time talking on the phone again like the other joiner did I knew things went wrong again. I asked him what was going on, he said he was waiting for instructions.

Suddenly I realized why I am paying them so much: for the wastage, for the miscommunication, for the incompetency and for the inefficiency.

( A six-working-day job dragged on over nearly two months!)

There are three obvious explanations why Hammonds is such an inefficient company. Firstly, there are too many communication channels, most of them dysfunctional. For instance, the designer had put down on paper a front system for one bedroom to maximize usable space; the surveyor, failing to pay attention, put down in his drawing a carcass system, cutting the usable space to half (despite of charging a made-to-measure premium price, the major parts all come in standard sizes). When the wardrobe was nearly finished, I was called forward to inspect it. When I questioned the size, the office answered the joiner that I had signed the papers (piles of them, and some in hardly readable fine prints), hence responsible for it myself. Eventually, they admitted their mistake and took the carcass down.
Secondly, Hammonds subcontract the jobs to an army of tradesmen. The drafts of the surveyor do not give all the details. The contract tradesmen on site, unwilling to take responsibilities, spent most of the time making phone calls to the office rather than working on the furniture. One morning, a sit-and-wait joiner told me that he had spoken to seven different people in various departments of the office but still had no clue what to be done. The tradesmen I hired before own their businesses directly. When matters arise, they are usually dealt with immediately on sit by the tradesmen themselves.
Thirdly, the company has little financial pressure to finish the job on time. The customer is required to pay down 20% deposit when signing the contract, and another 64% long before installation. They generate fat interest returns on the loan market from these free credits supplied by their customers whilst the customers waiting indefinitely for their furniture to be put up. The local tradesmen I hired directly before did not charge a penny until the job is finished. In order to get paid on time, they have to finish the job on time.
The only efficiency I can see in Hammonds is the way they collect money from their customers (this is the area where the company has truly invested serious human resources). The company has caused considerable disruption to my plans and life. For more than one month, I was forced to live in a house dangerous like a construction site. It has also caused considerable damages to my house, as most of the tradesmen sent by the company have not bothered to put down any protection on carpet, floor, banister etc. The company lightly shrugged off its responsibilities with French polishing and a 5.29% discount, using its market power. The marginal cost of a court dispute is near zero to the company but substantial to the consumer. Hammond's know that, and take full advantage of this knowledge.

P. S. I have just read complaints in this community about Hammonds furniture falling apart in just six year (and pages of similar stories). I can only keep my fingers crossed now.

In July 2014 we arranged for a fitting to happen in October 2014. When the fitter turned up on the dates (2 days to fit) he noticed that parts were missing, and he noted he had no instructions from which to work, and was confused about the extra requirements we had specified for a cable hole/tie area in the side of the wardrobe fitter inside an enclave so that we could still access the plugs. The wardrobe was fitted, incorrectly, and left a hole in the side which a plug could not fit through.

I called on the day the fitter arrived and Hammonds promised to call me back about the missing parts and lack of instructions- they did not. I continually called Hammonds' customer service desk and it took over a week to get a response. When I finally got a response, they eventually told me they would send someone around to look at it, 2 weeks after the fitting- and sort it out where possible.

I took the day off so the person could come, and they only confirmed what I had already described twice on the phone. They said they would come and rip it all out - and refit it all but it wouldn't be until 3 weeks later. The new dates we arranged were 2 and 1/2 days. The second attempt, in November, the fitter failed to turn up! I spoke to the head of customer services after waiting hours to find out what was going on- her name was Leah Meacham - and she was absolutely horrendous to deal with - absolutely 0 tact at all.. and I ended up sobbing in rage that now we would never finish this before Christmas since I had no holidays left and now family coming from abroad would not be able to stay with me because my room was in ruins. Did she care? No. Leah, after hearing my sobs, tried to suggest that I leave my keys with the fitters rather than take any more days off.. I was up to 5 days at this point.. Why on earth would I let anyone in my house from their company since I know they are liars, and they had done nothing but mess up at every turn?

The fitter came on the 2nd day and took the wardrobe out but left it in a huge state - Hammonds offered to reimburse us if we paid for fixing and redecorating.. but no decorator was interested in a 1 room job, and they were not interested in fixing someone else's mess either.. so in the end we had to use some of the time off we had booked during Christmas to pay for and do the repairs. We had to take more time off in January to do the final fitting which was completed on 27th Jan 2015, which was my birthday.. not the best way to spend my birthday but this was the date given to me and I know better than to wait any longer to get this over with. We had tried many times to try to call it a day - they don't install, we don't pay.. but they would not accept this.. and Citizen's advice told us we have to let them try and make good.

It was an awful experience dealing with the company.. I tried to follow the correct process, and I took it up with the ombudsman but they were absolutely useless and simply sided with Hammonds stating the amounts they would give us are reasonable of about 15% of what we paid, and to be honest it doesn't really cover the costs I calculated of 23%, which I asked for in writing but received no response for over a month.. In order to even get this money offered, I had to speak to my HR department to prove how much I am paid, my partner had to do the same.. I had said in my letter I would then go to the Ombudsman following the lack of any response. Top tip, by the way, do not communicate by post - it is not the best way to deal with companies now, if you want an immediate response - use Twitter!

By the time we got the result from the Ombudsman, which was in August 2015 - way more than 3 months after we filed our case.. We had no money left to go to court since we were planning a wedding, but had I any more left I definitely would have tried.

Unbelievably bad customer service, and to be honest I do have a functioning wardrobe now for the last year, but I don't trust it will last since I don't trust the company - and I don't recommend anyone goes with them, the quality is not bad, but if you want to spend 3 months trying to fit a wardrobe in your house and repair the damage when they get it wrong, then go ahead and use them.. but if it were me, knowing what I know now - I would not take that risk. There are bad complaints for every single wardrobe fitting company out there- and people make mistakes, it happens.. but what defines largely how bad a situation is, is the way it is dealt with by customer service and let me assure you to say it was not pleasant is a huge understatement.

Oh, and because I had not paid it all up front- I had to constantly go back and forth to Barclays the lender of the money at this point and ask them to extend the date by which I should pay back to match the expected completion date which changed 3 times. So, that was fun too, consider this as well.. Barclay's customer service have equally odd problems but the way they managed to deal with it was far better than Hammonds, probably because finance is a more regulated industry.. thank God.. and you're less likely to run into ### situations like this.

Finally, if there is one thing to say about Hammonds they do have 1 person in their entire company who possesses tact and empathy and that is Jane Randall, who at the time of my case was the head of Social Media and Complaints and wow does that company need her considering.. She managed to stay calm, and be pleasant throughout the entire thing which is more than I can say for the other 10+ staff I dealt with over the year. Jane, if you're reading, hope you're well (and baby I think now..) - consider leaving that poor excuse for a company you work for, their entire customers services department is a shambles and you're a diamond in a ### pile.

Appalling Customer Service ok. I never really write reviews as I don't really have the time, however, this process was so exhausting and draining that I would like to share my experience in order to make people aware. I don't even know where to start from. I am stressed and angry with the experience. This is not a WOW experience this is a shoddy experience The job started well. We had 2 people visit our home in 3 different occasions to take dimensions, draw up the shape of the room and make sure the wardrobe fits ok. The job took 2.5 times longer to complete. Additional days were added to allow the wardrobes to finish. Hammonds said due to the shape of the room. Even though they knew from day 1 what the room looked like. We were quoted originally 2 days to finish the job. then took 5 days in the end. on the third day the fitter was at our place till 11 at night, cutting and fitting. he had to stop due to noise and come back to finish. Our baby was sleeping downstairs, I was desperate to get the wardrobes finished but there was simply not enough time. a week later I received a phonecall from the fitter on the friday afternoon, around 5.30 asking to arrive the day after, the saturday, to finish the job. I had to change my plans and we booked the sunday in the end. The delivered doors were not the right size, even though the fitter had measured previously and so again the job didn't finish. nevertheless he was here till 5pm on the sunday finishing other bits, which meant I had to cancel all my jobs for that day. even though on the phone he mentioned he would only be a couple of hours. not to mention the fact the fitter was more than an hour late, without informing us, I had to call him to ask where he was, and when he turned up he didn't apologise he just laughed it off saying I had more time to empty the room. the following saturday another fitter came to finish the job. he was there for 2.5 hours and finally hammonds was out of my house for good. The process was exhausting, Customer service was appalling throughout the process. no communication from them unless you initiate it. I put in a former complaint which of course took me nowhere with their resolution team. I also got what seems like a threat within their last letter "once the remainder of your balance has been paid, the 10 year guarantee will also be activated". The remainder is not a lot of money but when you take into account that I work contract and I just couldn't be at work and had to take additional time off this job has cost me a lot more than what it is worth. by the way two of the hinges broke within one day of the wardrobes been installed. I am scared to think what will happen in a years time. I am disappointed and what should have been a WOW experience was really not so WOW. Customer services has ruined the experience for us. Save yourself sometime and go to a company where you are not just a number in a queue with standard apologetic replies that mean nothing.

Avoid this company. Refuse to ring me back - wardrobes fell apart and took them 4 months to sort and trying to speak to a manager about the stress it has caused me and they ignore all my correspondence and calls - say will get a manager to phone me back and they don't! There are much better companies out there with better customer service and better quality products!

This is what I have to say to Hammonds after buying a product and it breaking down after only 3 years:

I am very disappointed with your service and how this situation has been handled. The same way that I booked time off to wait for your worker on the specified day and he was able to change the time, I think you should be more flexible and rearrange the time for me by speaking with another client as I am a priority.

A confirmed time is a promise to service a client and you changed this based on a worker and expect me to adapt to your workers at no fault of my own. It is very unfair that I arranged everything, took the time off and missed paid work for something that was so expensive in the first place. I then have to wait a month in order to get this fixed due to your last minute change and it is a date that is not possible for me. I didn’t expect the drawers to break down this quickly as it should be a sturdy product.

I am very annoyed and although I have put in a complaint you confirmed this will not be dealt with until I have the drawers fitted. This seems a bit ridiculous as I am clearly unhappy with the way things have turned out and your team are not being flexible or paying attention to the fact your company has done wrong by changing a confirmed time on the very same day. I will take this further with a consumer specialist as the set of drawers were not cheap and this guarantee has not held up to the agreement as the product was installed incorrectly and so has been out of use for some time. I will remain with the faulty drawers as usual and arrange with a handy man on my own accord as you also do not do weekends. I will also be sure to leave my reviews about your service publicly so that people are aware of how things are handled and that I had to wait for over 20 mins on numerous occasions to get through to an assistant via telephone. I also asked for a list of dates and times that you did have available and this was not provided although this was also promised. This is a hopeless situation.

The side panel had a join in it that we not informed about. The pattern in the wood did not pattern match. It looks completely wrong. Hammonds state it is "showroom standard "! That's their response!
It's appalling. Had we known about the join or the mismatch of pattern we would have declined.

My mother had booked an appointment for Hammonds to come out and quote for some fitted wardrobes.

Unfortunately due to some family visiting at short notice, she had a slight change of heart the day before the appointment, and so we tried to contact Hammonds to cancel the appointment. However there was no answer and no voice mail to leave a message. We then tried to respond to the text they had sent us confirming the appointment - this was a non starter as the text wasn't from an actual mobile number (some sort of automated or masked number so any replies failed to send).

So we thought the only option would be to tell them when they arrived the next day (today). Perhaps they might v even call to confirm the appointment (since it was a Sunday)... No of course not!

The Hammonds representative arrived on time then spent several minutes sitting on his car on the driveway (I'm not sure why). I waited patiently at the front door for him.

As he got out of the car, I approached him and apologised profusely - explaining how we had attempted to contact the office to no avail.

He looked at me, huffed, turned around to show me the back of his shaved head and and got back into his nice shiny black Jaguar - without saying a word!

Now as much as this irritated me, I tapped on the car window - which he duly wound down - and I apologised once again. He looked at me and wound the window back up - again not one word to me.

By this point I had had enough. I tapped a third time. He wound the window down and gave me a filthy look. This time I told him I thought he was an extremely rude man. At that, he sped off down the road (and I do mean 'sped'). We live in a 20mph road and he drove down at at least 50mph (possibly more), to the point where several neighbours came outside due to the noise of his engine roaring.

Around 5 minutes later, Luke from the Hammonds office called. He'd obviously been told by this 'gentleman' that the appointment had been cancelled. I explained what happened whilst Luke clearly feigned interest.

Overall a terribly unprofessional organisation - If my experience is anything to go by - we have decided to use Sharps instead since their staff seem to have at least a basic level of manners.

I requested a brochure from their website on a Saturday evening. I'm purchasing a new house, no date to move as yet but was just looking for some ideas. Before you know it I have received 15 calls from them over the space of 3 days. I had one call that gave their number and am assuming the next 14 calls were them as caller id witheld. I don't answer no id calls but after the 15th call I answered to see who was bothering me, hammonds. Straight away pushing me for a design consutlant. I don't even have the brochure i requested yet to know if I would be interested and as i explained to them, I don't even own the house! I just think this level of 'hounding' to be completely unacceptable

In late 2000 we spent almost £20000 having Hammonds refit all four of our bedrooms. The saga of getting them right lasted almost a year. Since then we have gone back to them due to various problems, peeling handles, discolouring of veneers in the main bedroom, etc. Imagine our horror when, just outside the guarantee period, the laminate surfaces in 2 bedrooms began to peel off. All the door and drawer edges have large gaps where the surface has delaminated. The options offered by Hammonds are:

Chargeable replacement doors and drawers
or
A free visit from the french polisher.

The french polisher is due tomorrow. I will post an update after his visit.

Even in the 21st century, £20000 is a hell of a lot of money to spend, only to find that the furniture is literally falling apart after 6 years. By contrast, our MFI kitchen units, fitted in 1992, regularly clean up like new, with hardly any deterioration. Compare a kitchen environment with a bedroom environment. Even worse, one of the rooms has hardly been used for 3 years as our son is at university, so this is not normal wear and tear. I am disgusted that this company pass off cheap rubbish as high quality furniture.

On the face of it, Hammonds show little interest in customers once they have your money.

After an horrendous lengthy dispute with this despicable company they gave me a credit of £132 for materials not used in my fitting of wardrobe doors. For the hassle caused they rounded it up to £140. Making a goodwill gesture of £8. Considering the package price was £3, 600 and they already had over £3, 000 of our money, I felt £8 pretty derisory. I refused this offer. Hammonds are now saying I refused the "credit" of £132 and are making me pay this amount to them! It was the derisory "goodwill gesture" I refused. A credit for materials the fitter took away with him is a credit. This is just the tip of the iceberg how this company have bullied and intimidated us.

In September 2007 we had a home study fitted by Hammonds. We had chosen the chestnut oak veneer finsih and the salesman had assured us that although this was expensive (full price on completion (£7, 500) it was of a quality far superior to the laminate finishes which were half the price and that we would not be disappointed with our choice. We were told that there would have to be 2 joins in the desktop but that these would be meticulously matched at their workshop before it was dispatched. The salesman was a complete liar. Everything he told us was untrue - even down to the fact that all Hammonds staff are employed and that they do not use sub-contractors. They are in fact all sub-contractors. The furniture arrived and after day one of the fitting process we looked at what they had installed and could not believe our eyes. The desktop had grains going at oblique angles where there had been no attempt whatsoever to match the joins. The profiles on the front edges changed from one design to another and didn't butt up together.The back panel looked as if someone had tried to varnish it by hand, varying from thick spattered globules to a thinner coating where the wood showed through. There was a complete edge of exposed chipboard where the back panel was the incorrect size. The drawers snagged - the list goes on. Anyway before the fitter commenced work on the second day we phoned Hammonds to say that therefurniture was not acceptable to us as it was not what we had been sold by the salesman. It is cheap rubbish that they were selling as bespoke - made to order - crafted - high quality etc etc. There brochures and their salesman are blatantly misselling this product. It is gross misrepresentation. They refused to remove the furniture and insisted that they carried on with the fitting. So that is what happened. They then said that they would address some of the issues that we were unhappy about and eventually in early 2008 they put on a new desktop with new profiles which is better but still badly joined with no grain match and sticky waxy filler that oozes from the joins. The desktop is now a deep reddish colour whilst the wall units are a more golden shade and they look like different furniture. The whole thing is completely inadequate. It is substandard in its fitting and it has been sold to us as something it is not. It is MFI quality kit furniture and has been sold as "crafted" and "specially made for us". We have refused to make the final payment of £1, 200. They said they would accept £900 as a gesture of goodwill. We will not pay them another penny but have said that we will reluctantly keep the furniture at the money we have already paid them (ie £6, 300) although it is not worth even half that - we have had other opinions on this from carpenter/fitters etc. Hammonds then started the threats in the form of letters from "Credit Protection" and photcopies of Court Claim forms complete with our names. We still refused to pay anything more for something worth so little. So we will now see Hammonds in Court - we tried mediation and as a final offer they said they would now accept £600 as the final payment. We will not pay them anything else so we are now waiting for a date for the Court hearing. Be warned - this firm will use threatening, intimidating tactics to force you to pay them for a product that has been sold under misrepresentation. We now know there are lots of others who have fallen foul of this dreadful company. They do not care about customer satisfaction and they are a company to avoid at all costs.