I had a free home estimate from Empire Today. The jingle is very catchy and their website is extremely deceiving. Paul came to my house, very late, but his car broke down and that is understanding. He looked at the floors and measured them. He did not look underneath at the pads to see any type of damage, prior to coming to the conclusion I needed new ones. He quoted a price of around $3,600.00 at first. This was extremely high and he did not mention anything regarding the buy one room, get two free. I told him I would think about it, but if he went lower, I would really consider his company. He went to his car to talk to his manager and came back with $2,600.00. I thought this was fair, so I gave him a check for $25.00 to hold the price and installation in place. I had a few other companies come over the weekend to quote prices as well. The local carpet company, with a great reputation, quoted a much lower price of $1,745.00 without new pads. I sent in cancellation via fax and USPS. A few days after I received a "confirmation" call from Paul from Empire, so I told him I canceled the order. He asked why, so I told him. He said that his company matches prices. I told him that was good, so he said he would check with his manager and get back to me. He got back to me at $2,200.00, including everything. I agreed to this amount, because the carpet was much better and the warranty was a little longer. The delivery was scheduled for Saturday. I received a confirmation call on Thursday. They told me to expect a call on Saturday between 730-1030 with an estimated call. I waited and waited, no call. So I called Empire. I was on hold for over 2 hours, and was hung up on twice. Finally, I got someone on the phone and was told the order was canceled by the installers. No one bothered to call me the customer, the reason for cancellation was never explained and I was pushed to Monday without notice. After talking to the customer service desk, I was pushed to Tuesday. Finally the carpet installer came on Tuesday and had a crew of 1 person. He was there from 11 in the morning to almost 10pm at night. He was unable to complete the project because one of the carpets were ripped. He promised to have it ready no later than Wednesday. Come Wednesday, I am called by the manger, Larry, and he tells me the carpet is ripped again. The reason explained was that the "loaders" were over stocking the trucks and not paying attention to the products. He apologized and said someone would be there Saturday with the carpet. He tried offering a different product, higher quality, but I picked out this color and carpet for a reason. Finally, come Saturday I have my carpet installed. 7 days after the promised date. 6 hours of telephone conversation and hold time. Several unfilled promises and quotes (was told $2,200.00, but was changed to $2,300.00 when I called in and was told by Larry that I would be compensated). 24 hours of my valuable time wasted.
I had to push the painters out, I had to change my plans for the kids, I had to actually call them and this is not a good business method.
This company is in violation of many consumer protection laws and are not allowed to treat consumers in this fashion. I am in the legal field, but I wanted to see how this spanned out before writing about it. Looks like they think I forgot about the last few weeks.
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