Empire Today Empire Carpets Empire Floors Empire Stood me up twice, Don't waste your time  Internet

I called Empire to get a quote on tiling my kitchen, two bathrooms, and carpeting my basement stairs. I had an appointment for Monday, between 4-6pm. Monday came, and so did 6:30, with no call or sign of the rep. I called customer service and was put on hold for 20 minutes while he figured it out. Apparently, the rep did not have the tile samples, so she called her manager and told him she was not going to come out. Only problem, nobody called me. So the manager calls me and tells me he will give me a huge discount for the inconvenience. A rep comes out and quotes me at $9,000 for all of the work. I told him that was outrageous and I would never pay that. (Tile total of 300 square feet and carpet 12 basement steps). He calls his manager and he brings it down to $5,500. Huh?? How did you just knock off almost half of the price, I’m guessing you over quoted me to begin with. I stick to my guns and tell him no way. He finally convinces me to pay $700 and just get the stairs carpeted. Which also seemed high but oh well. I write a check for the full $700 and installation is scheduled for Saturday, between 8am and 6pm.

So we stay at home all day Saturday until they finally come at 3:00. They start to bring in the carpet, but it is completely wrong. Wrong color, wrong style, wrong everything. So they leave. I call Empire and tell them I want to cancel my contract and have my check refunded. She tells me that she cannot do that without manager authorization and he won’t be in until Monday. She promised he would call me first thing Monday morning...still waiting. I have no idea how this companies manages to make a profit or how they have any customers left. I ended up tiling my 36 square foot bathroom myself. Total cost for empire to install: $1,500 over 4 days. Total cost for me to install it by myself: $112 over two days. I figure I will save about $5,000 by doing the tile myself. Total savings: 90%. !!!