Empire Carpet / Carpet Installation

I will never, ever do business with Empire Today again. Nor will I ever recommend them to anyone unless my goal is to make an enemy. We used Empire several years ago to carpet 1200sq ft. of our basement. They came, provided the quote and booked us the next day. Installers came, installed and did a great job. We decided to use them again for our Master Bedroom. The salesman came and measured....interestingly his measurements were 50 square feet more than my mine and my wife’s. Suspicious yes, but still having the first good experience in my head I proceed to select a carpet and make an installation time 2 days later. After the salesman left I notice his math was wrong on the bill and he had to return at 10:00pm to fix the invoice. So I took the day off from work, got up early and proceeded to move all our bedroom furniture out into the living room. As all of you experienced, this task is not only a pain in the neck but time consuming when trying to do it alone. At 10:00am I called Empire to ascertain an approximate arrival time. I was put on hold and when the CS rep came back on he assured me the installers would be at my house by noon. Noon comes and goes. Now it’s 2:00pm and I’m assuming they were caught still at the previous job. At 3:30 I call back only to find out that someone had cancelled my “order.” Not only was I lied to at 10:00 by Empire Today, but now I’ve wasted an entire day for something that was never going to happen.

After being put on hold for 15 minutes I finally was connect to someone who said she was the “manager.” She apologized profusely and told me that the early morning representative had lied to me. She then proceeded to discount the price $200 and assure me that I will have an early morning installation for the following Saturday. Now I pressed her on this as I needed to take my 3 year old daughter to a birthday party at 2:00. She “promised” me the installers would be there before 9:00 and done by noon. Another lie. I called all day Saturday with each CS rep giving me a different story as to when the installers would show up. At 1:00 I was told “they will be there any minute.” I figure I would wait and have time to take my daughter to the party while my mother-in-law came by to let the installers in. They didn’t come. At 3:00 I called again...this time using language consisting of many 4 letter words. This time the so called “manager” said it was completely inappropriate for someone to promise me early morning installation because the installers are sub contractors and they have no control over them.

At 6:00 the installers showed up. Walked in and proceeded to tell us how tired they were. I told them to leave if they feel they can’t do a good job. They assured me they would. They brought the carpet in and proceeded to install. The carpet was Empire’s Century Brand. We were instructed by the Salesman and a CS agent that the carpet was made by Mohawk. I asked the installer the same question and his response was “Empire will tell you anything you want to hear.” I still let them continue. HUGE mistake on my part. Live and learn. Once the installation was completed they quickly left. Having a 3 year old and a 1 year keeping us busy our inspection of the carpet had to wait until after bed time. After inspection it was obvious why they left so quickly. They left areas without padding, they missed corners, they didn’t use tack board all around the room, and they stapled the carpet down in the closets and areas where they left holes. The seam going across my room was horrendous. The next day my wife stepped on a nail coming through. I blind installer with one arm could have done better than these idiots. Not only was the carpet installed poorly they damaged 2 walls in our bedroom.

Again...we called the very next day and got a plethora of apologies. Empire’s CS reps must go through special training on how to lie and apologize effectively. After 2 hours of phone calls my wife finally was connected to a NY representative who agreed to replace the carpet the next Saturday. This has not been done yet since it’s only Wednesday but quite honestly I’m not expecting them to show up. If they do show up you can bet I will be watching every move they make to ensure they complete the job correctly so that I can be done with Empire Today...FOR GOOD.

Whoever reads this.....I implore you...DO NOT USE EMPIRE TODAY FOR ANYTHING. THEY ARE HORRIBLE!