Leroy sold us a broken fireplace and they are refusing to give us another one

We had a worst experience with Leroy.

beginning of May we went to Leroy at Merlin at greenstone and buy a fireplace. But we needed some advice on which fireplace will work in our home. The sales consultant suggested we pay R350 and they will send a profession fireplace installer to give us advises. We paid the R350, then they sent someone to our house to assess our house and advise us. The professional installer came and gave advise. Based on his advise, we bought the fireplace and paid the installation fee - R25k. A day later, we were told opsie, we forgot to tell you to buy another pipe for R4600. during this economic conditions who has R4600 lying around waiting for Leroy to make a mistake. But we decided to pay it because we really needed the fireplace.

they took over a week to deliver the fireplace. when it was finally delivered the professional installer came. he botched the installation proper. we went back to Leroy and told them were not happy. A lady called Mirriam from Leroy or their installers company not sure. Told us if we used the fireplace our house would have burned down. we still didnt make a big deal of it, we gave them another chance to fix their mistake. but they wanted us to pay for the new installation we refused. But they made us pay for moving the fireplace to a different place in the house, because the first place was not suitable. the sad part was that installed the fireplace based on Leroy's advice, but we had to pay additional amount. they sent us another installer, the new installer did a good job. But guess what the fireplace was broken, as it was put on by the installer to test it, a rope fell off the fireplace. We called Leroy again. They told us the will send an installer to put pins to tie the rope back to the fireplace. We then asked them to replace it. Below is the message Leroy sent us "ood afternoon, I hope you are all well. @⁨Dudu⁩ unfortunately It wont be possible for the fireplace place to get exchanged for a new one, should you opt to get a refund, you will then need to return the fireplace to the store. Please note that getting the pro to uninstall it will be an extra fee. Our first priority is making sure that our customers are always happy, my sincerest apologies that things have ended this way."

In summary, we paid Leroy over R30k and we currently dont have a working fireplace and they told us straight up they will not replace it. If we want a refund we must pay a person to remove the fireplace and we take it to Leroy at our own cost. this was the worst customer service ever experience.

we have decided to also raise this with Consumer protection, because we are sure this is not how customers should be treated