Empire Today

My wife and I have used Empire before in our home in Virginia, and I recently attempted to purchase carpeting for our new home in Florida. The sales person (Paul) (I will leave out last names as they know who they are), arrived at our home and showed us the samples we were interested in. He measured all the rooms to be carpeted and then figured the quote. We talked a bit about the promotion they were offering (60 percent off), he stated that after the discounts for the promotion and being a return customer, the price was about $4700. After a brief pause, he asked my wife what she wanted to pay which she replied $4000. Paul then called someone on his cell phone and being that we could only hear one side of the conversation, he said they will no pay more than $4000. He said ok to who ever he was talking with and hung up, and told us ok done (contract # 046FAAG468). We selected the carpet and signed the contract with an installation date of June 1, 2012, and explained that we needed to return to Virginia on Monday and he said there would be no problem. He explained that we could cancel with in three days of the order. The next day my wife had to go to the dentist for a tooth ache and was informed that she needed a root canal right away (which was not budgeted for at this time) now because of a shortage of funds, we decided to cancel the carpet order. My wife called [protected] (spoke with Marco who said he is a cancellation specialist), and told him we needed to cancel the order due to the root canal and shortage of funds. He told my wife he was able to bring the price down to $3000. if we didn't cancel. My wife told him that she was in a lot of pain and couldn't deal with this right now and asked if she could call back the next day. He said yes and gave her is direct number, she also asked if there would be a problem with the type of carpet we ordered as it was supposed to be installed on June 1st and he said no it was an overstock item! The next day my wife called Marco back and she told him that if we could get the price down to $2900. dollars and could have the carpet installed on Saturday June 2nd as we had to return to Virginia on Monday we would accept the offer as we could afford that. He stated ok and sent us a confirmation email with the new date and time. That night my wife received a call from (Bryan) regional sales manager who told her he had received a call from her husband (gave her the wrong name apparently not realizing she hyphenates her name) who told him there was a problem with the order and he needed to speak with her. She told him what had transpired and that it everything had been resolved. He told her that she should contact customer service to confirm that there were no problems (which she did and at that time customer service confirmed that everything was ok and said there were no problems)! At that point I told her that I had a feeling they were going to cancel the deal. Saturday morning at around 7:00 am I received a call from Empire customer service who said she was sorry but there had been a mix up as to weather our order had been cancelled or not and by the time they determined that it had not been cancelled the carpet didn't get on the truck. I asked when they could get it installed, she said Tuesday June 5th. I told her that I need to talk to my wife and asked if she could call back in half an hour and she said yes. I then spoke with my wife and told her what had happened. We waited until approximately 10:00 am and I then called them back. I explained why I was calling and the customer service rep I spoke with said see what was happening. She got back on the phone and said the reason we were not getting the carpet was that it was out of stock. At this point I told her I felt this was a scam and she said oh no we wouldn't do this. I told her that then she need to cancel the order and refund our deposit. She said ok and gave me a confirmation # crediting the funds back to my credit card. Shortly after this call. the original salesman Paul called and asked what the problem was being that I was extremely angry at this time, I told him I resolved the problem and hung up! (Didn't cuss, call him names or anything surprisingly given the anger I was feeling) Being that we had time to kill now, we went to Home Depot, Lowes and local Independent dealer with the measurements and received quotes for the same quality carpet, even below the $2900, quoted by Marco. however due to time constraints, we were unable to purchase carpeting on this trip thanks to Empire.. Needless to say, we will never use Empire again nor will we recommend them. I am also considering filing a complaint to the Florida Attorney Generals Office fraud division and speaking with my own lawyer. Being a retired police officer from the state of Florida, I pay attention to details. They are quick to tell you that they record there calls, but they forget that when they do that, they have allowed you to do the same! Empire loves to tell people they try to resolve all complaints but they do not have enough information to contact you, well if your reading this, I have provided the contract number and my name! Sincerely Richard Dostie