"THEIR after-sales service is absolutely rubbish - after they'd got their money from me I felt like an ex-customer."

These were the words of a Selby area woman, describing the treatment she received from furniture retailer MFI after buying a kitchen at their York store.

Sue Stevenson, 52, and her husband, Rod, 48, from Thorpe Willoughby, bought their £7,500 Shreiber kitchen from the MFI store in Foss Islands Road, York, in January.

They fitted the kitchen themselves at weekends and were pleased with the results.

But once they had finished in March, they realised they had some excess parts, with a value just under £200.

Two months on, and the furniture retailer has not refunded the Stevensons for the extra parts.

Sue said: "We waited until we'd finished before returning the bits, to make sure they weren't needed. MFI collected them at the end of March.

"They were happy to take the parts back, but they've still not paid us.

"We're happy with the kitchen, but we can't put that down to MFI - they just sold us the parts."

After numerous phone calls to the Layerthorpe shop and being passed from one person to another, the Stevensons went to York to speak to the store manager, but their problem remains unsolved.

"Their after-sales service is absolutely rubbish. As I said to their manager, after they'd got their money from me I felt like an ex-customer," Sue said.

"He said: No, you're a potential future customer,' but I thought, no I'm not, not after this experience.

"It's a hassle when you're working all day, and having to chase this up with people who don't seem to care after they've sold you something that amounts to quite a lot of money."

Sue said the company would have had been much quicker to act if it was owed money.

"They'd be sending us letters and trying to make us pay penalties."

A spokeswoman for MFI said a refund for the Stevensons had been confirmed on April 9.

She said they originally paid using credit from Black Horse, a finance company who provide credit for MFI customers.

"Any refunds we action have to be refunded to Black Horse, who will then send the customer a cheque," she said.

"The customer has confirmed her slate account has been closed so she thought the refund would be actioned by ourselves.

"Our financial services have spoken to Black Horse today, and they have the refund request there. They are processing the cheque today.

"Mrs Stevenson should receive her cheque within the next seven to ten days."