Several months ago (May) we purchased carpet from Empire Today and it has been a pain ever since that time. First we get two installers that show up over 2 hours late. They end up working in our home until 11 pm. Probably would have been done sooner but they had to take cigarette breaks over and over while complaining that they were over scheduled on 2 huge jobs in one day.
They quickly left before we were able to inspect everything as they were tired and it was just past 11:30 by the time they cleaned up. After doing a walk through we found that the carpet was not tacked down in several areas. Some places where the carpet was cut was left with huge gaping bare floor spots along the wall.
Before the installer arrived we were told not to worry about our radiators as the installers knew how to work around them.instead, the carpet was cut uneven and left bare floor showing, not tacked down and in several spots the carpet wasn't even cut but left trailing up the baseboards loose.
After calling the company they gave us the installers number and said to call him direct first. At first he seemed to dispute that it was bad but then agreed to come out. He came out the next day with a different man than the one with him during installation.
We were now informed that the man that was there during installation was a just a friend of a friend who had no real experience laying carpet he was just "there to help" since the regular installer couldn't be there. This man inspected the carpet and was angry at how shoddy the job was and stretched an re-tacked in several areas and "patched and tacked" behind/under the radiators. He apologized sincerely and we thought that the situation with the carpet was rectified though very disgruntled that Empire seems to not worry about qualifications of installers.
However, the carpet began shedding in large amounts. My sweeper has burnt up several times, belts snapped and wheels bind up because of the excessive shedding. After just two full sweepings we have two overloaded sweeper bags filled with nothing but carpet fiber.
I sweep the floor every other day and this has been going on since installation (end of May) until present day (October 19). We were told that shedding should not occur after 3 or 4 sweepings and to notify the company if it did as it would mean the carpet may be faulty. We did contact them immediately. It took at least 8 phone calls to get a response.
Fnally, they sent a man out to inspect the carpet and we gave him a piece of carpet the installers left with us. The inspector raked his fingers through the carpet and got nice little piles of fiber. He said it could take 2 weeks to get the report. It has now been double that and we have heard nothing.
We have placed 4 seperate calls to the company with the reply that someone will call us. Now on the fifth call we are told that the claim has been closed. We asked how that could be when the findings were not sent to us nor could they find any answer of findings on the computer. They lady on the phone said she swithced the status back to open and someone would call with the information within the next day. Well, as you can guess, no call and it is 4 days later.
This company is a joke, a pain, unorganized and has me irritated enough I am considering contacting my attorney at this point if my next phone call has no results. This company has serious customer service issues and not too thrilled with the carpet shedding excessivly. I have had new carpet several times in my life and have never had any problems with shedding, installation or customer service.
My first and last time using Empire Today. Sure wish I would have seen this site before I purchased. Our local BBB had numerous complaints against Empire in a different city near us but the one is our area only had two at the time.
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