I am writing to complain about my recent experience with the Cotswold Company in relation to the purchase and delivery of a sofa bed – The Hurley at the cost of £2,048.00. My complaint relates to two matters: 1) The extended delay in receiving the item 2) The delivery experience Extended Delay I purchased the Hurley sofa bed on 25th July 2024 and paid the full amount £2,048.00. The confirmation email stated “You order is in stock and we estimate delivery in 9-10 weeks.” In fact this statement turned out to be untrue. It became obvious that the order was not in fact in stock because I was contacted by customer services in September and again in October to apologise for ongoing delays. In September I was told it would be ready in October, and In October I was told there was a shortage of the fabric I had ordered – so the fabric for my order was clearly not “in stock” and I think this must have been known all along by the Cotswold Company. As things became increasingly and annoyingly delayed a customer service advisor rang me to say it would now be November for delivery. At this point I had had enough of the deceit and poor service by Cotswold and stated if the order wasn’t fulfilled in November that I wanted to cancel the order and have a full refund. In fact it did finally get delivered in November but I found the whole process disappointing and stressful. The Delivery The delivery was booked for the 19th November. My complaint relates to the competence and attitude of the delivery men. The sofa arrived in 2 parts – the main sofa frame and the mattress mechanism part. Both parts were very heavy. One of the men tried to lift in the mattress part on his own and actually dropped it on my threshold (no apology). After we established it was too wide to go upstairs I asked the men to position it in the lounge on ground floor and put it together. They refused to get involved in assembly saying it was not something they knew how to do or had had training in. I was astounded. I am a single woman and live alone. What was I supposed to do? The items were too heavy for me to move and I didn’t have the technical expertise or tools to assemble. Why did the Cotswold company not supply an assembly service or train the delivery men to help? So - I was left with a sofa frame, a mattress leaning against a wall which was too heavy for me to move, legs which had to be fitted to the base of the sofa and no instructions. As it was I had to employ someone to come and put the sofa bed together. For your Information it required: 1. To replace the temporary legs with the wood ones supplied. To do this requires being strong enough to turn the sofa upside down and back again. 2. To lift the very heavy mattress mechanism and angle it so it slots into the location bolts on both sides (this was quite tricky) and then tighten with a spanner. Surely you cannot expect your customers to be able to do this kind of assembly? Why was there no mention of assembly being required at any point in the process? I remain incredulous at the poor service I received especially in the light of your advertising and branding claims. I am most interested to hear your response to the above.