Natuzzi Furniture / Product Warranty, Customer Service

I purchased a Natuzzi leather sofa in July of 2003 from Indoor Furniture in Columbia, MD. The sofa was fine for about 2.5 years until one day I heard some creaking going on underneath the seat. Several days later, while I was sitting on it, more creaking and then a snap, and the whole seat fell through. On further inspection, one of the main wood support pieces underneath the seat had fractured on a rift along its length. It was clear that the piece of wood was defective. In 2.5 years, the sofa received light use - I don't have kids, I weigh 175 lbs, and I probably only sit on it 3-4 times/week. Out of a $2000 sofa, I expect more. I've gotten more out of IKEA furniture at 1/4 the price.

So I called Indoor Furniture and they referred me to Natuzzi since the store only provided warranty support for 1 year while Natuzzi supposedly covers the rest of the 10 years. First, Natuzzi wanted the product ID number, which was supposed to be affixed to the bottom of the sofa - it wasn't. It took over an hour of talking to someone on the phone and flipping the sofa over and over to determine this. I was eventually told that they could proceed without this number as long as I had photos and my receipt. After sending these later that day, I got an email reply stating that they got my materials, will review my submission and then contact me soon with how they will proceed. 2 weeks went by with nothing. I started calling and got the same response, "We're working on it." I thought, "How hard is it to look at 3 pictures and a receipt?" Finally, during the 3rd week, one of my calls was fruitful, "We're waiting on your receipt. That's the holdup." I faxed my reciept 3 weeks previous and had called 4 times since then, and they're finally telling me they don't have the receipt!!??!! Trying to remain calm, I refax it. And guess what? That's right, nothing!! I wait a few days and I call again - several times. Finally they tell me that they're waiting on the product ID number - the same one it took an hour to determine at the outset that it wasn't there!!! Aaaaargh!!! Frustration city!!! It was at this point that I knew that I was dealing with a completely incompetent customer service dept. If they were this bad at keeping track of their own customer data, it seemed probable to me that they were not going to be very good at following through on their warranty. I was right...

After several more back and forth calls between them, myself and Indoor, Natuzzi finally tells me that they will not cover their product because Indoor informed them that I bought the $2000 sofa on a good sale (to Natuzzi - a "clearance") and it was an "in-stock" item at the store (to Natuzzi - a "floor model"). It was not a floor model, it was from the warehouse - nobody sat on it there. And who cares how much I paid for it - that shouldn't affect the warranty! I repeatedly tried to explain this, but they couldn't seem to grasp the concept, or more likely they realized that they had found their "out." Additionally, the bill of sale did not, in any way, state the fact that there was no warranty. But y'know, those are details - who cares what information the buyer is given, right? In my opinion, it’s a total BS excuse and a hack job implementation - something I didn't expect from a company that clearly markets itself as high-end.

So I'm not sure what's worse, that they used the fact that I bought their product on sale and a "language technicality" to not cover their defective sofa, or the fact that it took them OVER A MONTH of my repeated hounding for them to tell me this!!! I shudder to think how long it would have gone on had I not called them repeatedly to get something going. Its like they don't realize the necessity of quickness in customer service - as if its just no big deal that people are sitting around with busted Natuzzi stuff in their house for a month - let 'em wait. Let me tell you, there is nothing like having a broken sofa in your living room when company comes over...

My summary: stay away from Natuzzi. They feature inept customer service, make sub-par furniture and then will use any excuse to weasel their way out of making good on their warranty.

Tim Baier

Baltimore, MD

Comment On This

Same thing happened to our sofa -- main support broke in the middle of the sofa (right on their advertise "extra leg support"). It happened about a year after we got it; but, since it was a floor model at a Sears outlet, we weren't even going to try to get anyone to fix it.

Meanwhile, my little Bauhaus looks as good as the day we got it and it's 4 years old.