Complaint Review: Floors and Walls - Amman Amman

We bought a new apartment in Amman in summer of 2018 and just like every new homeowner we immediately started looking to finish it to our own taste. First thing we decided on a kitchen from Ikea, who committed to installation in a week time. Next we were rushing to decide on parquet (flooring) to go on before our kitchen was due for installation.

Our bad luck led us to Floors And Walls who happened to have a parquet color that we liked. We asked the sales manager (Shareef Al-Shareef) if they have the chosen color in stock and how quickly they can install it. Shareef told us that they have limited quantity in stock now which they can install right away, and the remaining materials needed for the whole apartment will arrive in 4-6 weeks.

Any savvy person, especially one who lived in Amman long enough should have taken that as a cue to thank Shareef for his time and walk out. But we were neither; we were too excited to hear that it’s possible to get the flooring we liked before our kitchen goes in, and I, having lived for most of my life in Canada, was not all too familiar with local sales tactics or companies who can recklessly make and break promises.

Within 2 days, the promised parquet quantities were installed covering our kitchen and parts of the living room. We were ecstatic and little did we know that that would be the end of a cordial and happy relationship with Floors and Walls, and the beginning of a much sordid one. Shortly after that we left to Qatar as that’s where I work and my wife and I reside. Closer to the 6 weeks period initially promised by the sales manager for the new shipment to arrive, my wife called to inquire about the status of the products.

The sales manager assured my wife the order is in and due for arrival on time in few days, but the due date came and went, and the sales manager’s responses to my wife’s messages started becoming curt until they finally stopped. My wife took it to Facebook to post on Floors and Walls page inquiring about our case, and within minutes the page administrator messaged her to assure her the case would be reviewed urgently and resolved to our satisfaction.

Much to our shock, first in a series of later incoming shocks, we receive a message via Facebook saying there was some sort of oversight at the company and the order for the needed parquet had not been placed with the manufacturer from Austria, however, we can rest assured that the order had now been placed, and it should be in Amman in one month.

My wife was ready to leave for Amman when she received a Facebook update from Floors and Walls informing her that the parquet we ordered is no longer produced by the manufacturer, and the quantity we initially got was old stock with no more to come. After so much agony we decided it’s time to move on, and with my wife being in Amman for a visit it would be on us to go find an alternative flooring company, and resume our apartment finishing which had been on hold for almost 4 months by that time. But first we needed to resolve the mess we got into with Floors and Walls.

We naively expected that to go smoothly; down payment for the parquet which was supposedly ordered but no longer manufactured to be returned, and installed parquet to be removed and our money refunded. Wrong again; down payment was returned all right, but removing the installed parquet which was covering only parts of our living room, and refunding our money was, as Floors and Walls told us "not going to happen no matter what”.

Apparently the way business is done in Jordan defies common sense, and while I have the option to pursue the matter through a lawsuit, some of the staff members at Floors and Walls informed us that this option is futile, and it would be further waste of time and money, as other customers have followed through legal options to realize to their dismay that the company owner (Atheer Hamad) has clever ways to evade receiving notices from court, and therefore will never be required to appear in court.