I am redoing a bedroom and wanted new carpet and new blinds. So I called Empire Today because I had been seeing their ads for years on television. I also called a local carpet place. I made appointments for in home consultation and estimate for both places.
Since I've got cats with claws and they ripped up my last carpet, I decided to go with a low pile commercial carpet. The local place quotes me $1 per square foot installed for their commercial grade carpet, which would work out to less than $300. They also quoted me less than $300 for the mini blinds I choose.
When Empre today came out to my apartment, first of all they were over an hour late. The woman kept calling me to say she would be later and later and kept asking me here she should park. As this is a busy street, I just said, you just have to try to find a spot. She seemed annoyed. When she finally arrived, she did a quick measurement and proceeded to show me way too few samples. I didn't really find a color I liked. I asked how much per square foot they charged for one of the samples and she refused to tell me. She said they didn't work that way but charged by the job!
She was really rude and annoyed with me that I wanted prices so I said how was I supposed to make a decision without prices and she said "If you would just give me a minute I will write up everything". Really rude. What she finally showed me was amazing! She wanted to charge me $950 for commercial grade carpet for a 200 sq ft room! The faux wood blinds she insisted I choose were also coming in around $900. I said the prices were ridiculous and she said she could knock off $125 from the prices with a "coupon she had in the car". She proceeded to lecture me about how they stand behind their work and have a A rating with the better business bureau (I doubt that) and said they were the only business that could possible do next day installation. That simply isn't true.in any case I didn't even need next day installation!
She also pressured me to make a decision that day. When I said I wasn't prepared to do that she got even ruder than before she said that if I called to go forward they would have to come out again and do the whole estimate over - they couldn't take my credit card info over the phone even if I faxed them my authorization. She did not want to leave me with the quote she wrote up and said "Sorry I have to give that to Corporate". I said I can make a copy on my fax machine and she reluctantly agreed.
I am very suspicious of their business practices, the level of expertise of their sales people and especially of their prices which are ridiculously high! Do not do business with these rip off artists!
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