In September, upon installation of a new dishwasher, my kitchen flooded and the laminate floor was ruined. From Tri County Floors, a lady named Diane came over for an estimate. She took some measurements and looked around. She was able to see what was under the laminate floor because the dishwasher was pulled out.
I just bought the home and was not able to afford new flooring yet. It wasn't until December that I went to that store and brought home a few tile samples. Since Diane was not there, I let her employers know that I wanted the tile installed as soon as possible and either my husband or I will be home for the next two days so she could remeasure the space and give us a complete, new estimate.
The next day Diane told me that she still had the notes from three months ago and remembered what our home looked like. Therefore said she did not need to come by. I gave her the tile name which we chose and she said she would have it ordered. She gave me the full estimate and asked for half of the installment to be paid as soon as possible. I paid for half, and the installers were scheduled to come within the next couple days.
When they got here, they looked around and noticed our house was raised. They stomped on the floor and looked behind the dishwasher, which was still pulled out. One of the men immediately said, "oh no, this isn't concrete under the floor as we had been told, this is wood" he said he had to make a phone call because the price and tools needed would change. When he got off the phone, he let me know that Diane was going to call me. She did. She told me that since there was wood underneath and not tile, the price would go up by $800. Realizing that I was not getting such a good deal anymore, I asked her to cancel the entire thing and I that would do business with another company.
Right away she said that since she was cancelling the order, I would be charged a $250 fee for re-stocking the tile. This is where the problem lies. The reason I cancelled the order was because the price, now, was much more than any other company was charging us. Had I known that this was how much it would cost, I would have never started doing business with them. Diane continued to refer to this situation as an "unforeseen condition." It is clear that this is anything but that.
This was perfectly foreseeable had she come over to look at the kitchen and not based the price off her memory and left over notes. Like I had said earlier, our dishwasher was out of place and had she come over again instead of basing the situation off her memory it would have been clear, as it had been to the installers, before they started any work, what was underneath our laminate floor.
I even spoke to the owner, Brian, and he refused to give the money back. I told him that I did not sign any contracts and had not been given any paperwork from them about any of this. He simply told me that by giving them my credit card over the phone, I had theoretically signed. This goes to show how little he knows about business.
0 comments