Thinking of ordering a Sharps bedroom? Are you willing to carry your own furniture when it arrives? Are you willing to fit your own furniture? Are you happy to pay a large sum of money for poor customer service, lengthy delays and almost farcical errors? Get yourself a nice cup of coffee and settle in for a long read. Here is my catalogue of errors: Even though Sharps are expensive, I chose to use them because I have an awkward shaped alcove in my bedroom and they claim to specialise in dealing with these things. I also thought I would get excellent customer service and the process would be hassle free. It has been one error after another. A job that was supposed to take 2 days and be finished at the beginning of February is still ongoing and my room is still not finished. I am self employed, so every day I take off work is a day I lose money. I also live in a one bedroom house, so everything I own had to be packed in boxes for the duration of the fitting. 1. Initial design visit booked via the website. Sharps sales team phone me within 5 minutes of me sending the initial email. This should have sent up a red flag (a bit too eager to get my money, perhaps?). Visit booked for 31st December 2015. Sharps then call back the next day and asked to change the visit. I refused due to work commitments. 2. Design visit goes well. I am pleased with the design. Designer assures me my double bed can stay in the bedroom, as I have nowhere else to put it. Assures me the entire thing will only take 2 days so will not be much inconvenience. I sign the paperwork, spending over £4000, which I choose to have a finance agreement for. Designer has a few problems doing this on his computer, but explains it is a new system and I am his first customer to use it, so I think nothing of it. 3. Surveyor visit booked by Sharps. Again they phone the next day to try to change it but I refuse. Surveyor arrives, immediately declares the designer has mis-measured my room and his design is impossible. He says another visit would have to be arranged with the designer to rectify and redesign the room. Surveyor leaves. 4. Sharps arrange another visit of designer and surveyor together. Again they try to change the date. This time I agree to try to speed things along. Designer and surveyor arrive, redesign and remeasure everything. I remind them it is a 1 bedroom house so bed will need to stay in the room and I will have to sleep in it every night. Surveyor says this is no problem, bed will just be propped up against a wall during the day. 5. Sharps book a delivery date and a fitting date starting the day after delivery. They confirm the job will only take 2 days This is for the beginning of February. I pack everything into boxes. The only place I can put it is in my living room and bathroom, so I am unable to use the bath/shower as it is filled with boxes. No problem, I think, it's only for 2 days. 6. Fitter phones and asks to change the fitting date. He wants to start the same day as delivery. I agree, to speed things along. 7. Fitter phones again and says he wants to change the fitting back to the original date. Again I agree as I feel I have no choice. 8. Delivery driver arrives, declares the surveyor has made a mistake and has not informed Sharps I live on a narrow street so they cannot get their truck down the street to deliver. Several phone calls later, delivery driver does bring truck down my street, blocks the street for half an hour and delivers the furniture. 9. Fitter arrives as scheduled. Not the one I was talking to on the phone, as he is apparently now off sick. The fitter is missing essential paperwork, something he calls a cutting sheet. He says this is because he got the job at the last minute. He asks Sharps to email it to him and tells me not to worry, he can make a start without it. he is aware of the issue with the bed and just props it up against the wall as agreed. So far so good. 10. After spending around 2 hours sorting through the items which had been delivered and checking them, fitter starts fitting. Stops after half an hour. he refuses to continue the job as he says my wall is wet and must have a leak in it. He says if he fits the wardrobe my 12 year guarantee will be invalid. He says I will need to get this fixed then call Sharps to rearrange another fitter. To be fair to Sharps, this is the only delay I feel is justified. It was better to check rather than fit and have no guarantee. 11. 2 days later, having found the wall was damp because of condensation from a faulty bathroom fan, I call Sharps to arrange another fitter. As usual, Sharps then try to change this appointment afterwards. Are we detecting a pattern here? I agree, as the new appointment is earlier so would speed things along. I have now not had a shower for a week, as my bath is still full of the boxes of bedroom stuff. 12. Fitter arrives. A different fitter. He is in a foul mood, again due to my narrow driveway. He complains he should never have been sent on this job as he has a van which does not fit. Sharps should apparently have sent a fitter with a car. He blames me for the fact that he caught his wing mirror coming into my driveway. Fitter is obviously unwell. He tells me he has been off sick for a week but needs the money so asked to come back to work. He is furious there is still a bed in the room, asks how he is supposed to work with that. He coughs and splutters continuously. Fitter then announces he is missing this "holy grail" document called a cutting sheet. He accuses the first fitter of taking it with him. I explain he didn't have one either and Sharps had to email it. Fitter is not happy. Asks how is he supposed to work from an email on his tiny phone screen? Eventually he starts work. He then announces he cannot do the job because one of the panels is damaged. Apparently it has been stored the wrong way up, either by the delivery drivers or the first fitter as he moved things around. A new one will have to be ordered before anything else can happen. 13. A tad annoyed, I try to phone Sharps to complain about this delay and about the fitter. Fitter is furious I am trying to phone Sharps. he says I will only make things worse. But he need not have worried. It's Saturday. Turns out there are no customer service staff in on a Saturday. Out of curiosity I phone the sales number. Yes, you guessed it, phone is answered immediately. I have now realised Sharps are eager to take the money from customers, but less eager to deal with issues. I ask why there are no customer service staff working when customers may need to speak to them. Sales lady says she agrees this is not great, and they keep asking for someone to be available as the get all the angry customers calling them at the weekends. I get the impression this lady has heard this many times before. She takes the details and says she will pass them on to customer services when they reopen on Monday. Fitter leaves. Bathroom still full of boxes. I am getting a bit smelly now from wearing the same clothes for over a week. I was expecting this to all be over with by now. 14. Monday comes. I call Sharps and ask to speak to customer services. This is my first of many conversations with a lady by the name of Joanne, More about her later. I explain I am not happy with these errors, with the delays they have caused, with the attitude of the second fitter, and with Sharps in general. Let's face it, I could have gone to B&Q, spent a quarter of the money and had a finished bedroom by now. I explain that I thought Sharps was a high quality company, but this is not what I am experiencing. Delivery of replacement panel arranged for Tuesday. Another fitter scheduled for the day after delivery. I explain to Sharps about this "cutting sheet" the fitters are missing and ask they make sure the next fitter has all the paperwork. Joanne assures me they are sending one of their showroom fitters and he will do a wonderful job. She agrees to discuss "A gesture of goodwill" after the room is finished. Joanne says she will phone me on Thursday after the job is finished to check everything is ok. 15. Tuesday arrives. Delivery of replacement panel. I can't be there but have arranged for my partner to be present to accept the delivery. I am furious to discover the delivery driver turned up alone and was unable to carry the item he was delivering. My partner, who has a slipped disc, takes strong pain medication and is not supposed to carry anything heavy, was asked to help this delivery driver carry a large heavy panel up the stairs. He felt he had to do it, as to have refused would have meant the item not being delivered and yet more delays. What would this delivery driver have done if his customer was an 80 year old woman? Clearly Sharps expect their customers to carry their own furniture now. 16. Fitter number 3 arrives on Wednesday. Promptly states the job will take at least three days, should never have been quoted as a two day job. Yet another day off work. Yet another day of smelly clothes, boxes in the bathtub, washing my armpits in the kitchen sink. Sexy image, isn't it? Still thinking of ordering that Sharps bedroom? 17. Guess what, fitter does not have the cutting sheet. I am starting to think this document doesn't exist. Apparently even the factory cannot find it. Am I now living in a comedy sketch? If Monty Python fitted bedrooms..... Again, several lengthy phone calls to have something emailed to the fitter's phone so he can get on with the job. 18. Fitter announces the surveyor made a mistake. What a surprise! Excuse me if I am not astonished by this. He has mis-measured the awkwardly shaped alcove. Remember that from the start of this message? The alcove which made me choose to use Sharps in the first place, because this is supposedly what they specialise in? Fitter informs me if he fits what Sharps have suggested I will be left with a hole in my floor approximately 2 feet long and 4 inches wide. Great! Just what I always wanted! Actually, the fitter is a nice guy and is doing his absolute best to salvage this immense mess. He manages to use some excess melamine to fill in most of the hole, but I am still left with two small inch square holes which he cannot do anything about. I have to pay someone else to come and fix those after Sharps have finally gone away. 19. Fitter informs me one of the cupboard door handles is the wrong size, and I have some screw covers missing. He says he will order those immediately, they will arrive on Monday. I will, however need to fit them myself, but hey, no problem. Sharps expect customers to carry their own furniture, so why shouldn't they expect their customers to also finish fitting their own furniture? 20. Joanne. Remember her? She was supposed to call me on to check everything was ok? Do you think I heard from her? Of course not. I let a week go by, just to give her the benefit of the doubt. She doesn't phone. And of course, the door handle and screw covers don't turn up either. Am I surprised? What do you think? 21. Finally I call Joanne. By this stage I have stopped seeing the funny side and am losing patience. She is unable to give any reason why she did not call me. I suspect she just forgot and tell her so. She doesn't deny it. I ask where my missing handle and screw covers are. Apparently they have been dispatched but "must have got lost". Do we believe her? Hmm, let me think. She says she will send another one. 22. Joanne is pleased to inform me that Sharps is willing to offer a "gesture of goodwill". A grand total of £148. I tell her this is not acceptable and I refuse it. 23. Today the handle arrives. It's the third time it has been sent, but this one was finally sent needing a signature so I got it. Guess what? It doesn't fit. And there were no screws to fit it with anyway. And no screw covers. I call Joanne again. Now I have been told I will need another cupboard door to be delivered and another fitter to fit the door. 24. Joanne tells me she is transferring my case to customer services. Hang on, aren't you customer services? I thought that's who I was speaking to about this. Apparently not. But now I am considered to have a serious enough issue to merit speaking to the customer-dodging customer services department. I am awaiting a phone call from someone called Rachel. I am not holding my breath. So that's where we're at now. It has been over two months. The room is still not finished (although at least enough of it is done for me to unpack some boxes and have a shower). Don't be fooled by the glossy adverts. Go to B&Q instead. You'll save a shed load of money, and get much better service.