Our recent experience with MFI has been a stressful disaster from start to finish. I have always known good things about MFI for their products and service until now. Having had a kitchen from MFI for over 18years gave me the confidence that nothing could possibly go wrong.

MFI is a brand recognised by everyone, 'a UK's leading national retailer of quality fitted furniture' . They are a store where you can see the items on display, try, touch and feel rather than buying over the internet or through a catalogue without seeing the product.

We had seen a bedroom range called Sirene since Christmas 2006 but kept hesitating in placing the order as we had not shopped around for any other wardrobes and hopng that there would be further reductions in the price at the next bank holiday.
Easter came and went and once again we popped into our local store, stood in front of the display and imagined how wonderful our bedroom would look with the sliding wardrobes.
Summer also came and went. We painted our bedroom, had new carpet fitted and the complete colour scheme chosen around our wardrobes which we still had not ordered.
Finally, after christmas 2007, we were holding a receipt in our hands and walked away smiling knowing in 3-4weeks time we would have our wardrobes delivered.

Prior to the delivery, I called the automated 24hours answering service to find out whether our delivery would be am or pm. So far so good! I mean what possibly could go wrong?
We emptied our clothes into black bags and moved the the existing wardrobe into our living room. The bed got dismantled on the morning of the due delivery so the wardrobe could be fitted, so as you can imagine, our place was a tip.

Once the delivery came (Friday), we noticed that one of the main boxes was very badly damaged and so decided to call customer services. Having waited 25minutes and finally getting through they told us 4weeks wait for the replacement part. You had to be kidding!
Now this was only the beginning......it gets worse!

They finally agreed to have the replacement part delivered on the following Tuesday, I mean why couldn't they tell us that in the first place? The delivery was meant to come straight from the warehouse which meant there would be no phonecall beforehand to tell us they are on there way, and we had to sit at home twiddling our thumbs from 7.30am up until 6.30pm. They agreed to send the delivery to my parents address as we had no chance of taking any more time off from work.

Ok, so that was sorted - finally!
The chest of drawers and bedside cabinet got fitted and the bed put back together.
We then realised that we had recieved 2boxes of internal shelves when we actually needed 1 box of internal shelves and 1box of internal drawers. So come Sunday morning, we called customer services again (we actually got through to them straight away funny enough) and they adviced for us to visit the store and reorder it again.
By this time we were getting quite impatient. My clothes were still in black bags and the living room was piled up with our belongings from the bedroom.

So we found ourselves driving to the store with the receipt in our hand and a duplicate box in the back of the car. Luckily that didn't take long to sort out and the manager was quite helpful. Adviced the internal drawers could be fitted in afterwards and will be delivered in 2weeks time.

Tuesday came and we had a delivery of a very large box. hmmm...but it wasnt the same size as the damaged one. We tried calling customer service all day on Tuesday afternoon and attempted on many occasions on Wednesday and had no luck. We even left several messages at our local store and still had no luck. Come Wednesday evening we went down to the store in not a very pleasant mood and got the right box ordered again. By the time we got home, we already had a message on the phone saying we would get a delivery on Friday. Ok, that was a pretty quick answer but where is it being delivered? What time? Again having left several messages at the store I still was none the wiser.

So now its Friday and a delivery arrived this morning ....wait for it!, yes its the wrong box, again!
By this point I was ready to pull my hair out and trying to call the branch again and finally speaking with the manager to tell him its wrong.
The conclusion of it is, we required box number 2 which on MFI's system read out as a different code to the code that was printed on the damaged box. An apology from the manager for all the trouble and a promise the correct one will be delivered by courrier on Tuesday next week. Another weekend without wardrobes!
I count myself lucky that it wasn't the kitchen being replaced and it is only wardrobes but for a brand name as big as MFI it is quite shocking.
This has been a true test of our patience and our confidence in MFI. There products are of good value for money but I don't rate there service. We won't be walking into MFI in any hurry.

UPDATE : (2weeks later)
You would think that with all the stress we have had with MFI recently, it would get better and we would finally have our wardrobes up and looking amazing. How wrong am I?
We received the right box - after the third attempt, and we finally made an attempt to start building our wardrobes. I went to work and left my hubby to it only to return home with the wardrobe up and only one door. Our wardrobes has 2sliding doors where one of them is mirrored. when they had opened the box, they realised they were broken and took another trip back to MFI to complain AGAIN.
Delivery date given is 5th March.....that is another 2 1/2 weeks away.
Another problem was one of the partitions had a hairline crack but just from the headache of waiting another couple of weeks living out of black bags, the wardrobes were put together and the crack shows up very nicely on my side when I open the door. I've taken pictures (i will upload soon, once I get the chance to download the images onto the laptop) and we will be asking for a big compensation from MFI for the stress, anger, time off from work and the inconvenience they have caused to us.
Wish us luck!