Empire Today LLC Submitted Charges of $4000 OVER Contract Price Union City, California Nationwide

Run -- do NOT WALK -- away from doing business with Empire Today.

$10,000 contract for installation of laminate and vinyl flooring and baseborads throughout house.  10% down payment required at contract signing in mid-November to lock in sale price for mid-December installation.

First installers (vinyl) were a no show -- cancellation call didn't happen until later on the no show day.  Crappy, but having worked with my share on contractors, that sadly isn't unheard of.

Laminate installers showed up the following day and called me for payment info -- they wouldn't start work without $4000 payment, which was expected.  What wasn't fine was that they asked for my DOB.  Charge was run through that night, and that was the last time I spoke with installers.

When the installation was finished, they ran two additional charges through on my account -- without contacting me -- so that the total amount they took was $4000 OVER the contract price.  My initial reaction was that this was an honest but terrible error on their part someone in their accounting department would catch & fix immediately.  Nope.

Their Customer Service is a bad joke.  When calling their 800 number, Customer Service fails to answer (although sales consultants seem to always be available nearly 24 hours a day) when calling during the Central "business hours" as stated on the recording.

I called many, many times unsuccessfully trying to reach Customer Service.  I initially chalked it up to unusual Christmas and New Year's holiday hours (the final charges were run through my account on 12/22/2014).

I finally reached a live Customer Service rep early on 1/5/2015.  The guy took my comments and told me I'd hear back within one business day.

When I hadn't heard back within 24 hours, I called again, asked to speak with a supervisor, and got a total wretch named Jasmine who couldn't get her story straight.  First, she said I wouldn't hear back for 24 "business" hours -- huh?  When I asked if that meant three business days (8 business hours a day), she was stuck on stupid and insisted that it was "24 business hours," and was unable to clarify exactly what that meant except to insist that they ran business 24 hours a day.  I then pointed out that I'd not received a response in over 24 hours, she reverted to 24 "business" hours. 

She also said that they had only received one of the four payments taken from my accounts -- for the vinyl flooring ($1600).  I immediately disputed that by providing the dates & amounts Empire Today had taken money from my accounts, and I pointed out that their records were pure crap because:  1) they wouldn't have shown up if they hadn't received the $1000 down payment in mid-November, and 2) that $1600 couldn't have been taken without the authorization I provided for the $4000 they took four days before that $1600.  Idiot.

She gave me some song & dance about them just being a national call center that handles calls from all over the US, and that it would "take time" to get in touch with the "local" Empire Today that had made the charges.  I explained that we weren't talking about some small sum of money but rather FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS they'd had for TWO WEEKS & hadn't returned, and I asked for the phone number of the "local" Empire Today so I could contact them & get my money back since time was of the essence.  She told me they don't have regular phone numbers for local offices -- they use some internal company directory they can't give out.  Seriously?!

Wretch Jasmine also stated that if they determined they had been overpaid, I would receive a refund in "10-14 business days" once that determination was made.  I flatly told her that was unacceptable.  I told her there was no way I would be satisfied with them depriving me of $4000 of my money for a month and asked if they were that generous with consumers who financed through them?  Of course they aren't, and I wasn't willing to be more generous with their delay than they are with their finance customers' delays.  Sheesh.

Seeing I wasn't going to get anywhere with her, I told her that I was unsatisfied & wanted to speak to her suppervisor -- she refused.  She did, however, say that I'd get a call back by the end of the day.  I didn't.

Empire Today did, however, call my brother later that day.  To explain:  my brother was critically ill & hospitalized for nearly four months -- he was finally discharged on 12/22/2014.  The flooring was installed in his home, but I was the one who paid for it.  The person who called him told him they needed documentation of the payments to Empire Today & provided him with a fax number.  He immediately called me, and I immediately faxed them the documentation as well as the Power of Attorney documentation and instructed them to contact me.

And I heard nothing back.

This afternoon, he was contacted again & told they hadn't received any faxed documents, and that's when I became convinced the company has a definitely slimy aspect rather than the over-billing just some honest mistake with the right hand not knowing what the left hand had done.  I had proof that the fax had been sent and had actually gone through.  Fortunately, the Empire Today representative gave my brother her email address, and I immediately emailed her the faxed document, proof of successful fax transmission, and suggested how very odd it was that they hadn't received the fax when I had proof that it had been successfully sent to the fax number they provided -- I suggested they have their fax machine checked for a malfunction.

And, I received no response.

As an aside, we have no real complaints -- so far -- about the product or installation quality.  One transition strip had come loose between the time the work was finished the afternoon of 12/19 and when my brother was discharged & returned home on 12/21.  Someone was scheduled to come out & fix it on 1/8/2015 (there was apparently some backlog due to the holidays), but he received a call today rescheduling, and given the rest of the shadiness, I cannot help but wonder if the rescheduling is retalliation.

Due to the gross financial incompetence of Empire Today, I urge people to STAY FAR, FAR AWAY from doing business with them.  I am blessed that the $4000 over contract price they took from my bank account didn't keep me from making my mortgage payment or paying for other necessaries, but I know that wouldn't be the case for many people.

As a consumer, I'm willing to accept that mistakes happen, but what matters is how such gross mistakes are resolved, and Empire Today gets a generous score of an F.  After a mistake of that magnitude, they should have been falling all over themselves to promptly fix the over-billing, but they haven't, and because of that, I cannot recommend that anyone EVER do business with them.