Very Disappointed — Poor Service and No Support from Rochester Furniture

We have been very disappointed with the service received from Rochester Furniture. We currently have three separate lay-bys with Rochester, amounting to over R100,000.

With one of these lay-bys, we simply want to remove one item — the giant grey three-seater sofa — as we have realised it is too big for the space in our new home. What should be a simple request has turned into an extremely frustrating and disheartening experience.

We have made countless efforts to contact Rochester — by phone, email, Messenger, and even through family members visiting stores in South Africa — but with no success. Today we finally got a response on Messenger. We are currently living abroad, so getting assistance remotely is crucial for us. Family members who tried to assist were told they could not be helped due to the POPI Act, while at the same time, we cannot get through ourselves because calls keep failing.

After over 12 hours of messaging with an agent today on Messenger, I was told that to remove the sofa, I would have to cancel the entire lay-by, create a new lay-by, and pay current prices — even though prices have gone up and some items are no longer available. This is completely unreasonable given that we are not asking to cancel everything — just to remove one item.

For a company where we have spent over R100,000, the level of service has been shocking. I have repeatedly asked to speak to someone in senior management, but no one has responded. We need our furniture within the next week as we are travelling to South Africa and moving into our new house — but this matter remains unresolved.

This has been frustrating, irritating, and deeply disappointing. I would not recommend anyone to buy from Rochester, and I will certainly not be dealing with them again in future.