I bought a house and wanted to do a lot of fixing up before I moved in. I only had one month to fix my house up before I had to be out of my apartment. Carpet was going to be the last stage of the process of fixing up my house.
I waited until a week before I needed the carpet installed to go shopping for it. After visiting the big home improvement stores and a few local flooring businesses I realized I waited too late to shop for carpet. No one could install the carpet by the time I needed it.
With this problem at hand I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to move all of my stuff in with this nasty carpet in my house. Then, I remembered the famous jingle "800-588-2300, empireeeeeeeeee... TODAY!"
I gave Empire a call and they sent a sales representative out to my house the next day. She came with lots of samples and was also packing a serious attitude until she realized me and my husband were serious about purchasing carpet.
She first measured how many square feet we were going to have carpeted. She wouldn't tell us how many SF it was because she wasn't "in liberty to do so." After we picked out the carpet we wanted, she gave us a price of $6800.00 when we could've gotten the same quality carpet at a local home improvement store for $2500.00. We opted for a lower quality at $3800.00, and since our house was empty at the time we got $200.00 off since they wouldn't have to move furniture. She also gave us a "special discount" which brought our total to $3200.00.
The installers came the next day. On Empire's TV commercial you see happy smiling Americans installing the carpet and they show up in a nice clean Empire Today van. Well, when the installers showed up, it was nothing like I expected. There were a van full of immigrants that looked like they had just sneaked in over the border. Only one of them spoke English.
They were in the driveway walking around smoking cigarettes and on their nextel's. The only guy that spoke English asked if the carpet was the right color, and then he got in the van and left. All that was there now were the ones whom didn't speak any English.
Since our house was empty we left them there to install the carpet and returned a few hours later to a party at our house. They had brought in their own stero blasting Mexican music and dancing to it.
When they left at first glance we were happy with our carpet. At a closer glance over time we noticed many many flaws in the installation. The carpet shed so bad it clogged up and broke my vacuum. I had to buy another one, expensive one that could handle all of the shedding.
They came out to fix the flaws in the installation with no problem. However, by this time we were so unhappy with the quality of the carpet and the price we paid. It had only been a couple of months and the carpet was matted down in high traffic areas.
After several complaints to the 800 number they said they were going to send a manager to our house to look at our problem. I took off of work that day to meet up with this person. When they finally got there 1 hour after their 4 hour window period I found out he was just another sales rep. That couldn't help me.
Again, another complaint later they sent an installation manager to my house. He told me the carpet was in good condition and that I need to vacuum in the opposite direction and the carpet will look the way I want it to. (hmmm... Never thought of that!)
After a years worth of complaints I finally got in touch with someone that could help me. He told me he would give me $1000.00 off of the price of my carpet, which would bring the total to $2200.00. I said "No, that's ridiculous, I could've had this same quality carpet installed from a local home improvement store for about $1500.00 or less." Then he said "Fine $1500.00, but we won't take off anymore." I was happy, I guess. Although I paid 1500.00 for a carpet I really don't want in my house.
So my $3800.00 carpet wound up costing me $1500.00 after a years worth of stress. Empire knows they're a rip-off or they wouldn't have given me that much off of my balance.
Do not shop empire today, i don't care how much of a hurry you're in to have it installed, you'll be happier waiting another week or two to have it installed by someone else.
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