Costco sells granite and quartz countertops through a company called STC. Their main selling technique is to lure you in by stating that you could never go wrong with a large company such as Costco and that STC has been in business for 20 years. This was the main reason I chose them. They quoted my counter top replacement and asked for ALL of the money in advance. You cannot pay with a credit card so you have no way to get your money back. I paid them over $5,000 and they waited for my check to clear before scheduling anything. Everything this company does protects themselves and there is nothing in place to protect the consumer.
They ask the customer to do their own tear-out which was fine. It was the only thing that went correctly. What STC quoted was approximately 50 sq ft of quartz "Zodiaq" counter top. My kitchen "had" a raised bar top. The raised bar top was raised approximately 6 " and was about 100 inches long. The existing kitchen configuration was not being changed. I had tile counter top there before this project started.
Everything was going fine until the day they came to install the counter tops. They installed the entire rest of the kitchen and then began work on the bar.
At this time they told me that they could not put this bar top into my kitchen the way that they had sold it to me.
Their solution was to have their "cabinet maker" come and "fix" my existing cabinet so that it would take the heavier bar top. His solution was to put in these hideous looking braces that looked like something that you would put on your shelves in the garage. Even that solution did not work and they deteremined they would have to cut the bar down from 19" wide to 14". They left and I thought about it over the weekend, called them on Monday and told them to forget it!
At this time I was really stuck. I had lost faith in the company with the 20 years behind them. After all the sales person should have noticed the problem, the person measuring should have noticed the problem and the installers should have noticed the problem.
After MUCH negotiation with them they agreed to give me my money back because I was not at all happy.in addition to the issues with the bar top the quarts just didn't look that great. Their was a faded spot, the seams were not good, there were stain spots from the glue, etc. I told him that I would not demand my money back as long as they fixed ALL the problems. They agreed.
We went with a bar configuration that was not raised. I now have a counter height eating area rather than a bar height. This was fine with me because if they had told me this in the beginning it was always an option. The other issues did NOT get fixed. They put the faded piece of quartz right back where they had been.
I asked them to requote my job to make sure I was not paying more than I should because after the redesign, there was less square footage then originally, not to mention that they didn't fix my issues. They called back and said the quote was actually more than the original because of the larger slab that they had to put in. I didn't wait around to hear what else the guy had to say. He had lied to me so many times and failed on his promises. When we finally agreed to go ahead and fix things he promised to have my kitchen back in a few days. It was more like two weeks. The list goes on and on about what these guys promised to do and failed to do.
I lost money on this entire transaction because I had to buy new barstools which was not in my original budget. I have to repair the tile backsplash and I had to have the plumbing and electrical installed twice because of the second tear-out.
I feel I was ripped off because I paid top dollar for a supposed "quality" job and really didn't get quality at all. I think a company like Costco should either stand behind their products 100% or not be in that business.
0 comments