Complaint Review: Empire Today - Northlake Illinois

Sorry to hear what happened to you, Deb. Hopefully you will be able to get your $500 for the padding back. I just wanted to say that I had a similiar experience with an Empire Today sales representative. After seeing the commercial ad nauseum on the t.v., my mother logged onto their website and set up an appointment for one of their sales representatives to come out. We were interested in both carpeting and hardwood laminate flooring for our kitchen. He showed up on time and at first was very courteous and seemingly honest. He told us we were in luck, as they were running a 50% off sale on carpeting and quoted us prices for the 4 choices of quality of carpet he had. He ran down the price/square yard for each and we began looking at them. A s my mother was hedging between styles and colors, the sales representative began lowering the price "to help her in her selection process." Right away we came to realize that Empire utilizes the stereotypical used-car salesman technique. The longer we looked, the more the price/square yard went down. Ultimately he gave us a flat rate for all for styles of carpet (now we would be paying the same price for the "upscale" carpet as we would the "basic" line). He also gave us a bloated price for the laminate flooring for the kitchen. I had done research into this and knew that his price was very high. So he sits at our dining room table and my mother joins him (she had settled on a possible carpet style/color). Without asking, he begins to fill out order forms and I tell my mother that we might want to look into another flooring dealer nearby. The sales representative looks up and immediately gets belligerant. He says, "Whoa, you have me here filling out the order forms (We did??) and now your talking about going somewhere else?" He asked what the problem was and I told him that the price for the kitchen flooring was too high. He says this is fine and we will just do the carpeting. I tell him we prefer to work with one company for everything, and at this point he turns nasty and slams his books shut and says, "I'm outta here." He goes into the other room to pack up his samples and returns and sits back in the living room and asks, "Why is it so important that you have one company do both?" I didn't answer him (more on this later) and said I wouldn't answer his question because he had become belligerant in our home. He said "I won't be spoken to like THAT" and packed up his gear. He told us - "We come into a house once, and only once." He then said goodbye and left. Later on I called their 800 line and asked the phone consultant if it is indeed true that you get one chance with an Empire sales representative and that's it. He said that wasn't the case and could send someone else out. So as it turned out, our sales representative had lied during his hard-sell. In all my consumer experience, I've never had someone come on so strong and get so visibly angry afterwards....and I've been to many used car dealerships where it is expected. I am writing this to give prospective Empire customers a "heads-up" that there may be some serious haggling needed in order to get a fair price (whatever that may be). In regards to the concept of having one company do the carpet and the floor....one time I had two seperate companies perform such an installation. We had a problem where the carpet met the hardwood, and both companies blamed the other. When I called the carpet company they said it was the hardwood installer's fault, and vice-versa. In my experience, it's better to have one company that cannot pass the buck to another entity. Again, good luck with your situation, Deb.