My wife and I went to Lowe's with a customer to help them pick out lighting fixtures and tile for a basement finish that I was doing for them. While in the flooring section they noticed a $199 carpet install price for an entire house. So we gave the salesman the dimensions of each room and how many steps needed carpet. The room sizes were accurate because I physically measured, snapped lines and built the walls myself.
The salesman gave a price for berber carpet with an install price of $1411. My carpet installer gave a price of $1650 and I told my customer if thats what they wanted to do, go ahead and save the money to cover the upgrade to ceramic in the bathroom.
Lowe's sent out their sub-contract installer to measure and I met him at the job to make sure that we were all on the same page. I walked through each room as he measured and all was as I had given the salesman except a 3' x 5' section in a stairwell closet that we added, he said a cut out from a bigger section would cover it and we had a $199 install for one level. I showed him both flight of stairs that needed carpet and that to was accurate with what we had given the saleman.
Lowe's called my customer to get payment after the measurement and charged them $1975 on a credit card. The customer called me to see if we had made a mistake in the measurements that we had given the salesman and I assured them that we had not. Lowe's told them that they had not quoted $300 for hook strip with no explanation for the additional $200 difference. They told my customer if they didn't like it to cancel for a refund -$57 for the measurement charge. That would have been great but now my carpet guys were all ready booked so they stayed with the Lowe's price just to get done.
Lowe's than took longer than 10 working days to get the carpet. When it was finally scheduled my customers were both working but left the house open with a painter working upstairs. The installers wouldn't lay the carpet without the home owners their even when the painter told them that this is the house and that they were expecting them.
I've been doing this for 28 years and have never had to hold a sub-contracters hand while they did the work, but this is Lowe's policy that they should have informed somebody about. They reschedule for a Saturday and layed the carpet but left one flight of stairs. Their paper work said 7 risers but the price for the stair install added up to the 15. Lowe's tells them tough and they will have to order and pay more for the rest of the stairs. They than tell my customer that they will not be able to make them happy and that they shouldn't call them in regard to this matter again.
My wife and I both witnessed the estimating/quoting process and the presented price. They gave my customer paper work with none of the quoted numbers! Just a well planned scam! Lead them in with this price, send them home with out documentation and stick it to them in the end to keep your profit margin high and look good to corporate! Shame on Lowe's.
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