Three months after purchase, we noticed that the castor of our Kingston sofa was broken. We called Laura Ashley and a technician was sent out. As both of us work full-time, we asked my father to let him into the house. He inspected the sofa and told my father that he could see it was not the kind of household where a sofa would have been jumped on and so he would repair it. He asked my father to sign his visit off which he duly did. When my husband and I read the form that evening, we saw in the comments that the technician had written that the problem was most likely caused by the sofa being dropped and that he had repaired it out of goodwill. At the time, we were upset not only about the allegation but also about the difference between the verbal conversation and the written report. However, we decided it would be petty to take it further seeing as the sofa had indeed been repaired. However, a few months later, I sat down on the sofa and the same leg just gave way again. When I rang Laura Ashley customer service, I was told there was nothing that could be done as the first time it had already been repaired out of goodwill and that this damage was caused by dropping the sofa. I am really amazed that in any household a sofa can be dropped (who throws a sofa?) but could only reiterate that that has never happened in the time the sofa has been in our house. I was told there is nothing more they could do. I returned to the shop where we first ordered the sofa – we had been in there all the time when doing up our house and the staff know us well. They were really embarrassed about what had happened as they know us to be trustworthy and good customers who are not secretly having sofa-throwing parties. They advised there was nothing they could do but to get in contact with Laura Ashley in writing. A week after sending a detailed letter, I received a call from customer services, apologising for the inconvenience but saying that they had found the solution – the expensive Guardsman cover that we had taken out on purchasing the sofa would cover the repair of the castor. I was relieved to hear this and duly got back in touch with the insurance company. A few days ago, we received the reply that our cover did not in fact apply to repairs to the castor and there was nothing they could do! Back I went to customer service who sent me this helpful reply today: Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear you are not happy with the response received. We are unfortunately unable to look into this further as previously advised. Please accept my apologies we have no further action to take. Kind regards XXXX Customer Support Laura Ashley Ltd I cannot believe it. For the first time in our lives, my husband and I bought furniture that wasn’t from Ikea (Our Ikea sofa, by the way, lasted us 15 years and was still good enough to be passed on to our son after this time). We spent a huge amount of money on two sofas and were looking forward to enjoying them for at least as long. Now one side of the sofa is propped up with books and planks of wood so we can still sit on it. I am so upset with Laura Ashley and want to share this so that everyone knows the quality of the goods and that the customer service runs out the minute they have your money.