IKEA Ektorp Sofa

I bought an Ikea sofa about a year ago. When I got the sofa it was extraordinarily hard - my feet didn't touch the ground (I'm 5ft 6). By contrast the one in the shop was very comfortable. I wrote to IKEA who said it would wear in so I gave it until a few months ago. It is still very hard. I complained to Ikea that the sofa was not comparable to the display one by a long chalk (and I have checked 5 or 6 times during the year including two weeks ago). They say - and this is the rub - that the sofa does not have to be the same (or similar) to the one in the shop only to their description of it. Consumer Direct have told me that it does have to comply with the display item - it's called Sale by Sample - as well as the description. Ikea have retorted that the local (Enfield) Trading Standards Office agrees with them that Sale by Sample does not mean that. Sample refers only to part of the item - such as a cushion of a sofa - or to the first one of a batch with say 50 following. This would seem to me to leave a huge hole in the Sale of Goods Act. Part of the problem here is that Enfield Trading Standards cannot be contacted. Their phone lines switch to Consumer Direct and an attempt to contact them via Enfield Council switchboard dropped me in a black hole.

Any views on whether Ikea is right here?

Thanks Tony. It is good to get a definitive view. I must say the law seems to be a bit of an ass here since it seems to allow someone to display one thing and deliver something different. (I don't in fact think Ikea have deliberately sold me a different sofa but it is definitely substantially less comfortable than the one in the shop - actually there have been several in the shop and they have all been similar to each other and all more comfortable than mine. I think this may be a rogue sofa - their supplier used a different filling - but Ikea seem disinclined to test that). This would seem to be a huge hole in the Sale of Goods Act, and the only way to stop it seems to be through a tortuous legal argument which would probably give two different results on two different days in court.

Anyway thanks for your clarification.

Tony

For info I have finally resolved the issue with IKEA. I asked CD to refer me to Enfield TS, whjich they failed to do. I am afraid that CD seems very variable in its advice and approach. Iwas told different things by different people and when I asked, for example, whether IKEA's notion that a sample did not include the shop display item was wrong, as CD had previously told me, the agent asked a more senior person who said that it was all very grey what comfort meant. This was not what I was asking. I was asking for a point of law which should not in this case be grey. I fear CD is another govt attempt at light touch, this time by the OFT, and is likely to be as useless as the FSA was. I managed to get in touch with TS who visited me. Their person said they had not told IKEA this and that IKEA are wrong. So there seems to be a unanimous view that the shop dispaly item is a sample. Do you agree? While TS were trying to arbitrate on my behalf (although IKEA completely ignored their letter) IKEA emailed - a higher level in the company who reviewed the case - and said they had decided to exchange my sofa. Now they are willing to give me a refund, though I haven't got it yet - they are due soon to pick up the sofa.