Complaint Review: Kiwi Services - Carrollton South Dakota

On the Friday before Easter this year (Mar 25), I contracted with this company to do some light re-stretching of my 6-year old carpet, and to clean the same. I agreed to pay a bit over $2,000 to have this done, as there is a good bit of heavy, valuable furniture in my home that would have to be moved to accomplish the task.



I contacted Kiwi because they were the only ones in the area (of the major carpet services) that told me they had technicians "on staff" that could handle the whole project. The others (Dalworth and Blackmon-Mooring both told me up front that they sub-contracted out the carpet re-stretching. I wanted to get it all handled by one company, and Kiwi re-affirmed in a follow-up phone call that they were the ones to do the job.

The nightmare began late in the afternoon of March 25, when it started to become apparent that these "technicians" weren't qualified to do what they had contracted to do. At 9:30 that evening (they'd been in my home since about 10 am)I asked them to leave, and began to make the tour of my home which was still in major disarray.

The "technicians" returned the following morning, I pointed out some areas that I thought were damaged, and was assured that once they were finished, those areas would disappear. Long story short, things only got worse. At 2pm I called the dispatcher and told him of my plight. He told me to tell the guys to leave, and he would send out a couple of "senior technicians" to correct the damage. It was on their arrival I learned that everyone who works in the field for Kiwi is a sub-contractor, and that the repurcussions for the actions would be the technicians simply would not be paid.



The two senior technicians, by 11pm on Saturday nite, finally admitted that the three other technicians had damaged the carpet do badly that it would probably need to be replaced. We took several photos that I copied on to a disk, and sent them back to the office with the photos, a report, and a sample of the carpet. I was again assured that everything would be taken care of.

The following Friday (April 1), the Quality Assurance inspector from Kiwi arrived to take photos, write a report, and again assured me that "Kiwi will take care of everything. We'll just have to replace your carpet."

That is the last cooperative action I received from Kiwi. I have been systematically stonewalled by the intermediate-level "customer service" representative, and only got a meeting with a manager after I demanded, and told them I would be at their office at a given time.

After this meeting, I have to admit, things started to happen- they arranged a repairman to come out and repair the damaged baseboard and broken tile, and we started to work with some local carpet dealers to get bids.

EVERY ACTION THAT KIWI HAS TAKEN HAS BEEN ONLY BECAUSE I HAVE PERSISTED---THERE HAS BEEN NO PRO-ACTIVE STEPS TAKEN BY KIWI. TO DATE, I HAVE NOT BEEN CONTACTED BY A SENIOR MANAGER, OR THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY DESPITE THE DAMAGE AMOUNT BEING IN EXCESS OF $8,000. There's customer service for you.

These people have in their hands three bids, and two independent quantity take-offs for materials. All bids were handled the same way: when a representative of the company came to measure, I sent them back to their store with instructions to match my carpet to one similar. Two stores arrived at a carpet (two different carpets, but very similar) of approx. 50 oz face weight, both nationally known brands. The third bidder bid a proprietary (house) brand of 33 oz face weight, at a substantially lower price. The third bidder also measured about 15-18 square yards (the equivalent of an average bedroom) short.

Kiwi is hanging their hat on this bid, even though the two independent quantity take-offs agree with the other two carpet bids.



This saga has been going on nearly two months, and it looks like the only way we will settle this is to go to court, despite my having filed a complaint with the BBB, Tx Attorney General's office,and now this Blog..

BEWARE KIWI

PS- an example of Kiwi's "customer committment": On Monday, May 16,I called and asked to speak to "Paul" (these folks don't even let you know their last names), and was told that he would be tied up in meetings all day (a familiar line- I'd heard it several times the week before), but his secretary set an appointment for Tuesday, May 17 at 11am.

11am Tuesday- no call.

11:15- I call, no answer- I leave a message.

11:25- I call- get the secretary- she give excuse she's just coming in. Paul is at the doctor. IS THIS CUSTOMER SERVICE??

Rodney

Azle, Texas
U.S.A.