Maker&Son  Avis 291

Although my order took a long time to arrive, it was definitely worth the wait. My sofa, armchair and love seat are so comfortable and beautifully made. The delivery chaps were super helpful and friendly too!

After 1 year and 4 months and quite a journey the current team at Maker & Son restored our faith in the company and indeed delivered our beautifully made furniture. Thank you :) it’s every bit of comfort we expected and looks incredible. Great team keep doing what you are doing and you will turn this around for sure :)

Terry and Drew delivered our sofa and chair today. They were brilliant - helpful, professional and friendly. I am delighted with both items - the comfort cannot be beaten and the colours are beautiful. Thank you - despite difficult times at your company - you delivered!

I first encountered Maker & Son at the Hampton Court Flower Show in 2022. Very helpful sales team and when we tried the product, it seemed great. Followed that up with a visit to the showroom in Sussex - a positive experience there to, for what is a very expensive sofa choice. I needed new fabric samples whilst deciding so went back to the showroom only to be halted in the car park by two 'heavies' who informed me that the business had 'gone bankrupt' and they were closing it all down. Since then, have been informed that they have been saved and are still trading but under another brand ownership. My concerns are the fact that 50% deposit is still being asked for on order placement but confidence is not there that this will not happen again. I would like to hear from the new owners how they will support customers and provide assurances? It is a shame, still seems a delight to sit on - if you can ever get one of their sofas?!!! To quote the press: "Following the subsequent collapse of Maker&Son into administration, administrators FRP Advisory voiced concerns over the “nature [and] timing” of this transaction, which is reported to have occurred after a winding-up petition had been secured against the business, meaning it was insolvent when the assets were moved, potentially representing a breach of insolvency legislation.

FRP also made several other claims, including the allegation that, after they were appointed, an unidentified party had wrongly and without authorisation recorded Maker&Son’s secured debt with Barclays as satisfied at Companies House.

In November 2022, a High Court judge placed Maker&Son into liquidation and issued a court order invalidating the movement of assets. The same month, a Judge ruled that Jack Mason had applied to enable the firm to continue trading on a “false basis” by moving assets following the serving of the winding-up petition." I guess it's proceed with utmost caution.

I have now spoken to the license holders and it’s clear they are working towards a positive outcome for legacy customers with issues and are doing their best to go forward to deliver on brand in a challenging environment. I will definitely watch this space regarding a future order. Fingers crossed. Sept 2023

This is my second review about the new company taken over by the Hastings Sofa company. I’ll spare you comments about the original Maker & Son company as I’ve moved on. Last week I took receipt of replacement velvet sofa covers, they’ve been a long time coming. Mark, one of the new owners and his team delivered and fitted the covers and while they were here a long-standing issue was resolved within minutes. Nothing was too much trouble and the covers look really lovely. The real shining light in the long, long process of getting things resolved is Sophie. She has consistently gone above and beyond the call of duty and could not have done any more to understand and come up with various options to resolve the issues inherited from the original company.

Following up our disappointments with Maker&Son, we can report we never received our replacement covers that we had ordered and paid for. After a few months of occasional emails telling us optimistically on things, they ceased to communicate entirely and we've never heard anything again. We sold the sofa on eBay at a huge loss as it was still not the color we wanted and was uncomfortable to sit on. I wouldn't go near this company with a barge pole. They took all our money and almost a yaar later we have nothing.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER EXPERIENCED

Well if you think shelling out £6k for a sofa would bring you after sales service to die for …..think again. This company gave me really bad service with delivery which was corrected after I really complained to the sales guy. After it was corrected I didn’t think to write a poor review was appropriate. However, I now have a massive issue with the laundering of the covers. Three sofa sets were laundered as per the instructions at a professional laundry and did not stand the test of time. The Italian linen has to be washed piece by piece which is fine with the cushions but the frame cover is all one piece and even in a commercial machine there is too much fabric therefore creases and colour loss appear like tie dye . They were totally unfit for purpose and certainly not what you expect for the price paid.
On contacting Maker and Son. After 2 weeks of conversing on a social media platform which was the only way I received a response I was basically told I was out of the guarantee period (one month) and there was nothing they could do. If I contacted another person in the company they would discuss a discount for a new set. I asked for the other person to contact me and was told she works in another department 😂.
I have now given up and at my own expense had the covers re dyed. Absolutely disgusting service and I’d not recommend their sofas to anyone due to their after sales attitude.

This company are fraud’s that were ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. We found out after they took our order promising delivery in 6 months, that they were actually going through a forced liquidation process from their creditors, and all their suppliers had put a stop on their account due to arrears. This means they had no possible way of delivering our sofas when we ordered and still took our money! In my eyes that is purposeful fraud.
Now I see that the company has started up again with the same branding (different registered company) trying to get new customers. I know it is different owners than when I ordered, but they bought the company meaning they have a responsibility to fulfil their obligations to the people they took £100’s of thousands from.

I have also seen that one of the founders Felix Conran, who owned it when my money was fraudulently taken, is now thinking of starting a new sofa company. It’s despicable that he would ever be allowed to run a trading company ever again.

When you have so many negative reviews from customers who have lost thousands of pounds to this despicable company including ourselves who sent all the genuine emails to you regarding what happened. It’s unbelievable they have been able to get away with it.

They shipped faulty product in the U.S., the founder admitted the mistakes via email - and the head of Production (Wilson) promised to ship replacement parts but they never did. He kept promising for months that it would be shipping and then disappeared.
The positive reviews on here are fake - the new owners do not respond.

Avoid this company at all costs, they will steal your money. We originally placed our £7.5k order for a Marnie sofa and footstool in March 2022. We paid a 50% deposit when placing the order. We then paid the remainder based on the promise that our sofa would be delivered in May 2022. Fast forward over a year later, and we still don’t have our sofa nor any response from the company regarding a refund. Over the past 14 months we have tried emailing and calling them on many occasions and they do not respond. Unfortunately, we have come to the conclusion that we will never receive our sofa and are now faced with losing £7.5k.

Our invoice number was MS-7239 and quote number is QU-8209.

***UPDATE 30/08/2023***
Maker & Son have been in contact and are trying to resolve our issue. We have been told order is now in production and will update this review when it is delivered.

***UPDATE 06/10/23***
Unfortunately, we have not heard anything from Maker & Son since we were told at the end of August that our order was back in production. We have sent several emails during the past months and not received any response. We are still £7.5k out of pocket and are very skeptical that our order will ever be delivered. If you are thinking about placing an order with this company, I strongly advise that you don’t.

I bought a sofa that cost 9,000. The cushions are really badly made and uncomfortable. They are impossible to get in touch with and only after reading a bad review I left on here, did I get a response. They agreed to re-do the cushions if I took it down. I did and have not heard from them since. STAY AWAY and get your sofa elsewhere!

AVOID- THEY STEAL YOUR MONEY.
Took months to receive my 2 x 3 price sofas. Within a week they were very flat and uncomfortable. They agreed and said they had new style of cushions being made. I waited 3 months. They came very heavy and within hours became lumpy. After months of complaining they finally agreed to collect the sofas and refund me. Then everything went silent. The company went in to administration. I was told they would still return it within 3 month. It’s been a year and they not only have the sofas back but haven’t returned my money. They’ve basically stolen £12k and there’s nothing I can do.

I have written several excoriating reviews about Maker over the last 12 months. And i doubted very much that i would see my sofa. But - it arrived this week exactly as ordered all those months ago. Unbelievably comfortable. It’s clear the new team are really trying to do the best for customers.

Mark - the new owner delivered it himself. I advise anyone who still doubts this company - and i totally understand why - to get in touch with him.

We bought a Maker&Son sofa in 2021 and it was nothing like we tried in the show room - cushions slide off and it was very uncomfortable. After struggling to resolve the issue with original owners thankfully the UK licence was taken over by the Hastings Sofa Company and we finally have our new AMAZING sofa - they have been brilliant and have resolved an issue they did not cause making us very happy customers indeed. It really is a very comfy sofa.

All of these positive reviews can not possibly be genuine.
We’ve had our sofa and 2 chairs since last September and they are truly so uncomfortable. Lumpy, hard, creaky and you feel you are falling off the front of them.
We have since given up trying to speak to this despicable company about our complaints .
We’ve ordered a new sofa and chairs from a reputable company which will arrive in September. We will not try to sell these shabby pieces of furniture to make way for the new as I wouldn’t take good money for them.
My husband says the best place for them is on a bonfire which is probably what we will do 😩

Just providing an update from our previous review. We have now had the sofa's for almost a year and have been trying to get the issue of them being under stuffed addressed since October. I've emailed the addresses they've directed towards me, and filled in the resolution forms and have received crickets in response. The new people operating under Marker&Son did phone a couple of months ago to say that they would be in contact in a few weeks with a quote to resolve the issue. Still nothing.
Apart from the under stuffing of the cushions, the foam layer has rolled and bunched up. This means that not only is the sofa flat as a pancake, it is also lumpy.
The material (we had the orange italian linen, which is soft and gorgeous) has mostly held up but there are a few bits where the material has pulled a bit. The lack of resolution for this issue is so upsetting. The sofa's are so rubbish, I avoid sitting on them which is ridiculous for something that was so expensive and suppose to be the height of comfort.

My experience in New Zealand sounds very much like reviews elsewhere. The marketing was so impressive and I foolishly handed over the 50% deposit without question trusting they would deliver all they promised. Once they had my payment the service and communication dropped right off. It’s an out and out lie that they will keep you informed about your order every step of the way. Do not be fooled.
It has been over a year and the company has been liquidated. I contacted their supplier Maelstrom Design in Christchurch and fingers crossed they will complete the order in due course with the small percentage of our deposit and fabric they are holding. Maelstrom have been up-front and earnest so I hope this information may help others (although I still have no sofas yet).

the NEW makers sons team were brilliant - great service.

Amazing Customer Service

We had a problem with our Maker&Son sofa (bought in 2021) and the guys from Hastings Sofa Company (the current owner of the M&S license in the UK) were extremely good at sorting it out.
A team of two (Mark and his co-worker) came over to our house and managed to fix the problem in less than one hour. They had no contractual obligation to do this, let alone for free. They were super professional and quickly found the cause of the issue.
Stellar job!!!