By Chris Schulz
Investigative Journalist | Kaipūrongo Whakatewhatewha
A battle with Freedom Furniture to get a brand-new two-seater couch fixed or replaced has taken more than a year and left a consumer fuming with frustration.
Consumer NZ member Margaret (last name withheld) purchased her couch from Freedom Furniture’s Wellington store in April 2025.
A year later, the Wellington resident was still battling the company to get the couch she ordered.
It took a call to Consumer NZ’s Consumer Rights Advice Line, and a message from a Consumer NZ journalist, for Freedom Furniture to finally acknowledge it was in the wrong.
Freedom said it was committed to remedying the situation – but then offered Margaret a refund that was several hundred dollars less than the price she paid.
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How Margaret’s couch saga kicked off
Margaret spent 4 months looking for a specific kind of couch for the living room of her Upper Hutt home.
She wanted a couch with a high back so her elderly parents could safely use it when they came to visit.
Margaret eventually found the kind of couch she wanted at Freedom Furniture’s Wellington store, and purchased the modular two-seater on 5 April 2025 for $2,266.
She was told it would take 3 months for her new couch to arrive.
When it did, the delivery crew found the couch’s two halves didn’t fit together.
“It was significantly out,” Margaret says. “The delivery guys were like, ‘Oops, we’ve never had that.’”
Photos clearly show her couch was misaligned by 4 centimetres, with one half lower than the other. In one picture, two of her couch’s feet aren’t on the floor.
“It’s like a dog’s crooked hind leg,” Margaret says. “The sofa consists of two random seats put together that, apart from the same fabric, do not match in any way.”
Margaret contacted Freedom to complain. It sent someone to her home to remedy it. She says he agreed it was off, saying, “That’s as good as you’re going to get it.”
More problems with couch number 2
Margaret continued complaining to Freedom. After a series of negotiations, it rejected her request for a refund but offered her a replacement couch. Her new couch wouldn’t arrive until December 2025, 8 months since her purchase.
The email from Freedom said, “I can assure you that the replacement couch will not have the same level of misalignment as your existing one.”
But when it arrived, only one half of the couch showed up.
“I said, ‘Don’t even try to put it together. Take it away’,” Margaret says.
At this point, Margaret asked Freedom repeatedly for a refund. Instead, she was offered a $390 gift card to keep her crooked couch as-is, or a partial refund of $290.
Margaret turned this down, so Freedom offered her another replacement couch.
This one was due to be delivered in June 2026 – 14 months after her original purchase.
At this point, after dozens of email exchanges and Freedom’s refusal to refund her money, Margaret told Consumer she was beyond frustrated.
“I am off the scale,” she says. “It’s horrendous.”
Consumer steps in – and gets a result
On 29 April 2026, Consumer sent Freedom a message through its online complaints form.
A spokesperson for Freedom responded on 4 May, saying it had looked into Margaret’s case and agreed there had been an “error”.
“We acknowledge that this customer’s experience has not met our expectations. While we take care to assess customer claims thoroughly, an error occurred in this instance,” that spokesperson said.
“We are in contact with the customer and are working to resolve the matter.”
Margaret told Consumer that Freedom reached out to her on 4 May offering her a partial refund of $1,948 – $318 less than she paid for her couch and for fabric conditioner.
Freedom also suggested she would be responsible for returning the couch to their Wellington store.
Margaret complained again, and Freedom agreed to refund her the full amount of $2,266. It also agreed to pick up the couch.
Margaret says she will begin looking for an older second-hand chair that she can get recovered.
Freedom Furniture’s history of complaints
Consumer last reported on Freedom Furniture in 2022, when lengthy delivery times led to a series of customer complaints.
One described the company’s treatment as “hands down the worst retail experience of my life”.
At the time, Freedom blamed shipping disruptions and manufacturing bottlenecks caused by Covid-19.
Consumer has received three other complaints from Freedom customers since the beginning of 2026: one involved the delivery of an incorrect sofa, another was over a leather recliner that stopped reclining after a year, and the third involved the deterioration and fading of a leather couch.
The Commerce Commission has received nine complaints about Freedom Furniture in the past 12 months.
Your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act
Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, any goods purchased must be:
of acceptable quality – they must do what they are made to do, look acceptable, not have defects, be safe and last a reasonable time;
fit for a particular purpose – they must be suitable for a particular purpose that you asked the trader about and/or the trader told you the products were suitable for;
match with the description — the product you received match its description online, or on its packaging and labels;
if a retailer doesn’t meet the Act’s guarantees of a repair, replacement or refund, you could consider taking a claim to the Disputes Tribunal.
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