Ok, so as the title suggests I have had a problem with Harvey Norman.
About 12 months ago my wife and I purchased a 7 piece dining table & chairs from Harvey Norman, we had the item for roughly 12 months before significant cracks began to form on the table top. The tabletop itself is about 12cms thick and the cracks went all the way through which was visible from either end with crack separation about 2.5mm wide (wide enough you could slot a 10c coin into the crack. The table itself is our "formal" dining table and saw little to no use in this 12 month period and was covered with a light furniture wax for protection so we can rule out any misuse.
We contacted Harvey Norman about this problem and they asked to send through some pictures, we were told that a number of these tables have had issues and advised that they no longer stock the table we purchased.
This is where the problem begins - We were told that because they no longer stocked the table that we would be given a store credit to the same value of the table that could be used to purchase anything within the furniture department. We particularly liked the dining table we had so ideally we wanted something very similar so that it would suit the decor of our house, after looking in store and online there were no dining tables similar that we liked.
Since there were no tables we liked we asked Harvey Norman if it were still ok to use the credit towards another item from the furniture department and advised that it would be ok, so we put the credit towards a lounge and paid the difference. Some 3 - 4 months had passed and and in this time we purchased a new dining table from Domayne, since Harvey Norman never once asked for the table back or offered to pick it up off us so we donated it to the local smith family who were more than happy to pick it up, when I unscrewed the legs off the table it split in two so the table was pretty well unusable however the chairs were still in relatively ok condition.
When it came to Harvey Norman delivering the lounge we ordered, we were asked when the table was "coming back", however the problem now is that we no longer have the table. Whilst i understand that in many cases it may be assumed that the retailer may want the item back we assumed this was not the case since we were offered a store credit rather than a repair or refund. In-fact we were never offered a refund, If I was only offered a store credit as a means for replacing the table I would have refuted since there were no tables we liked and we would have been without a table AND without renumeration. We went and bought another table elsewhere because we figured we had a store credit to make up for our losses.
Any thoughts on the situation would be appreciated.
It is assumed that you're getting some sort of refund that they'll want the item back. It is also common practice (and common sense) that they'll save in courier fees by collecting a large item when they drop another one off.
You're in a pickle because HN never stipulated that they're not taking the table back. The best outcome may be a partial refund.
All the best.