Dozens of customers have been left fuming after buying what appear to be grey sofas from furniture giant DFS – which are actually brown when they arrive.

Sarah Temple, 38, is one of many DFS customers disappointed with their purchase which looked nothing like it did online or in the store, saying that the colour difference is so glaring "anyone with a brain can see it."

The mum-of-four ordered what she thought was a grey sofa on September 25 from the DFS store in Sunderland after looking at swatches with a customer assistant.

She'd seen the sofa she wanted online, and although there wasn't that exact one on display, she was assured by looking at the swatch fabric she'd picked the right colour.

But, when the sofa eventually arrived in December last year, it looked nothing like the grey shade Sarah had expected.

The sofa DFS had delivered was a light chocolate brown, and at that moment she was sure they'd been a mistake.

DFS checked with the manufacturer, but later informed Sarah there was no mistake, and this was just the colour she'd chosen.

The mum-of-four, from Washington, Tyne and Wear, said: "My initial thought when they arrived with the sofa was, 'it's okay there's obviously been a mistake and they'll just take it back'.

"But, to my disbelief, they tried to tell me this is the colour I chose.

"They said the colour of the sofa matches the swatch I picked in store when it just blatantly does not.

"There is nothing grey about this sofa in the slightest, and any person with a brain can clearly see that.

"When I said I wanted it taken away they just ignored me and when I went to the store manager he told me I could go no higher – it was an outrage."

More than £2,600 out of pocket and stuck with a sofa she despised, Sarah decided to apply for the popular BBC TV show 'Rip Off Britain'.

The show aired on January 31 and shortly after DFS quickly contacted its producers to tell them they'd decided to offer Sarah a full refund and that they'd collect the sofa.

Sarah was happy with their decision, but this didn't stop her wondering how the furniture giant could justify that the sofa was grey.

She created a Facebook group for people who'd had a similar experience with DFS – and discovered a community of disgruntled sofa owners with similar complaints about misleading colours.

A spokesperson for DFS said: "At DFS we take customer service extremely seriously and we were sorry to hear Ms Temple is disappointed with the colour of the sofa she selected.

"Sarah placed her order for a ‘grey’ sofa in the store after choosing the colour from a swatch book of 18 fabric samples.

"Within the swatch book there are four different shades available within the grey spectrum – ‘grey’, ‘silver’, ‘pewter’ and ‘misty’.

"Each shade is a slightly different tone of grey ranging from a warm brown grey through to a very light grey.

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"After reviewing the choices the Temple family selected ‘grey’ which is a warm brown grey.

"Unfortunately, once the sofa arrived in the customers’ home, it became apparent that they had ordered the wrong shade of grey.

"We sent a service manager to their home with the swatch book from the store to review their order in case a mistake had been made in manufacturing.

"It was determined that there was no mistake with the order and the ‘grey’ colour the customer ordered matched the sofa they had received."

DFS says it's the customer's responsibility to choose the right colour and that the company feels Sarah's sofa was "well within tolerance", but have offered her the chance to reorder a different grey couch for just 10% of the order's price.

The company's product team has been asked to review the naming of their swatches.

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