大象传媒

Rosanna and Gordon have been using garden furniture in their front room

With today鈥檚 tough economic times, it鈥檚 not unusual to hear about companies going bust, almost on a daily basis.

But where do you stand if the one you鈥檝e ordered from starts to struggle?

Rosanna and Gordon from Newport experienced just that, after putting down hundreds of pounds as a deposit for a sofa - Easy Living Furniture called in the administrators the very next day.

As Rosanna told us, 鈥淚 just couldn't believe it. I thought well, no, it can't be right, surely we would have known or they would have known and told me. I was just shell shocked, well, I went numb鈥�.

The sofa she wanted cost 拢1,491 and she had put down an 拢890 deposit to secure it, or so she thought.

She called Easy Living Furniture and was told she could have the sofa if she paid the rest of the money right away, but when she got down there the shop was shut.

Instead they called the administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers but that鈥檚 where the confusion continued.

They were told there was no way they could get the money back, then they were told they could have the sofa for 拢1,500, this then became 75 per cent of the cost of the sofa, then they offered it for the cost of the original balance of 拢600 but it would have to be in cream, not the original brown they wanted. They refused.

But insolvency practitioner Vaughan Jones said Easy Living shouldn鈥檛 have taken the money anyway, 鈥淥nce you know a company is about to enter into insolvency proceedings, then you definitely shouldn't be taking money from customers, or taking fresh goods from any general suppliers either.

鈥淚n my eyes, this is absolutely ridiculous, that a company can take people's money, knowing full well they're about to go into administration. You know when a company's going into trouble鈥�.

So what should they have done to protect themselves? Vaughan says, 鈥淚f they'd paid by credit card the company would be liable to repay them the monies under the Consumer Credit Legislation鈥�.

The Government鈥檚 Insolvency Service operates a 24 hour telephone hotline for anyone who has concerns about a company 鈥� the number is 0845 601 3546.