Complaint Review: Heartland Floor Coverings Inc

They would not make good on installation when it came up the installation .....

I purchased 2700 Sq ft of flooring installed in a brand new house. Cost almost $10,000. The wormanship on the vynal flooring was not very good. This was installed prior to the installation of door casings, trim, cabinets, fixtures. Several door openings had gaps where the flooring was cut too far from the wall to be covered by the later installation of door casings. One place shows almost a foot long sliver of floor that was cut to far from the wall to be covered by the molding that was installed after the flooring was installed.

Manufacturer's instructions for TecPly (Branded Product) call for staples to be installed every 2 inches around the perimeter, and every 4 inches through the field. They were installed one per foot. The underlayment naturally came up from the subfloor. I called them, and they put me off for several months, we just couldn't find an agreeable time for both of us. They finally came out, drove some staples through the vynal, and went away without saying a thing. I kept calling and Mike Pinkston was never there. I filed a comnplaint with Better Business Bureau.

They never did reply to them. I filed a complaint with the Illinois State Attorney General's Office of Consumer Fraud. They never responded to them, either. I finally filed suit, after finding that he had previously used most of the law firms in Decatur, therefore limiting my ability to find a lawyer to represent me. They totally ignored us, until the day we went to court to get a default judgement,then they showed up, and he was changing lawyers.

The judge allowed it, and subsequently refused to enforce his time table for them to provide information to us. We finally got to go to court again almost 1 year later, and they showed up again with a different law firm to represent them. The judge allowed it again, and again, refused to enforce the time limits set forth in the law. The company that I had obtained my estimates from sold to a larger competitor. The people were still the same, but the name had changed. We got new estimates from the new company name. Now they hustled into court, and got the judge to refuse to allow us to replace the old estimates with the new. then they got the judge to throw out the case because the company was out of business, and therefore, couldn't be called to testify.

They dragged their feet for 5 years, then raced to court to get my case thrown out on a technicality. I have a sample of their workmanship and a copy of the manufacturer's instructions, plus the BOCA building code has a fastner schedule that specifies the exact same spacing as the manufacturer's instructions do. Anyone is free to look at it.

SInce I have been showing this to people, I have discovered that this company has a bad reputation with professionals. The principals, Mike and Keith Pinkston are thought to be scoundrels by the other flooring people in town. Unfortunatley, you don't get information like this when you are shopping for flooring, just after you relate your troubles, do they come out.

John
Oakley, Illinois
U.S.A.

STOP! ..before you think about using the Better Business Bureau (BBB)... CLICK HERE to see how other consumers were victimized by the BBB's false or misleading information. Don't be fooled! It has been reported, when there are thousands of complaints and other investigations underway by authorities, the BBB has no choice but to finally give an UNsatisfactory rating to a BBB member business that is paying the BBB big membership fees every year. When a business is reported that is NOT a BBB member, BBB files WILL more likely show an UNsatisfactory rating, then reportedly shake down that company to become a member of the BBB. One positive thing about the BBB is, either way, if a business has an unsatisfactory rating with the BBB, you can be sure, the business is bad. But what about all those BBB member businesses that had complaints filed against them? Consumers never get to hear about them. What about the BBB advertising to the public? Is this a false and misleading perception they are giving about consumer confidence when dealing with a business? Click here to understand more of what consumers and business alike are saying about the BBB. You decide. ..Remember. The BBB membership is not earned, its paid for!