Empire Today Flooring Reviews and Complaints

In May 2008 we purchased laminate flooring from Empire. Initially, they quoted over $6600 (soemthing like $130+ a case)for about 700 sq ft.

We told them no. We got a quote from HomeDepot that was half that. When Empire called back we told them that we had found a better price. They came down to less than half.

Well *** us when ahead and had the floors in the dining, kitchen hall and living room done. It looked horrible. There was a transition board (sameIf y flooring) from kitchen to living room and dining room. I called Empire and told them I could not live with it.

ou have the same flooring, you want it to flow together and not be pieced together, it looked tacky. They said it was because, they do nor remove the exisiting flooring in the kitchen, so the floor is higher, hence the transtition boards. I insisted it did not look right and wanted another type of flooring. I told them I wanted to tile type flooring in the kitchen, so if there must be a transition board, to would not look as bad.

Well, the woman who scheduled the servicees said that they would do it, but they would not lifetime warranty the new flooring. I agreed. Not a problem. The new crew (subcontractors) was excellent, they took up the old flooring to the point that everything was even.

It looked great. Now a year later, we began to notice separation in the seams in the dining room, rised areas at the edges of seams in various places, in doorways, in front of the fireplace, etc. We call (on this lifetime warranty) they send out an "independent contractor" as he explained. He when throughout the house taking pictures and writing.

We get the report by email about two weeks later. It said the boards need to be replaced, at the customer's expense. He stated damange such as raises on both sides of the boards is due to having too much mositure on the floor, possibily by placing water glasses on the floor or letting water stand while mopping the floor. None of the boards are damaged on both sides, it's only on one side of many.

Neither do we use our floor as a table, nor do we use a sopping wet mop to clean the floors. What casued the boards to separate? That was not addressed. We use the recommended cleaning products.

This is there way of not adhearing to the lifetime warranty.

Never, would I recommend Empire to anyone. I will discourage them instead.

I scheduled an appointment with Empire Today and I found that they are *** expensive. Their original price to install laminate floors on 680 square feet, was $10,000. With their "generous" 60% off sale, the price was knocked down to $7,500...but still, 7,500? calculating 10% waste, that's $10 per square foot! I could get marble installed for that price. I felt this was outrageous, I talked the salesman down to 5k, but that was as low as he would go. I thought about it for a while and agreed, based on the fact that the quality of the flooring seemed to be good and they gave a 30 year warranty. Then the salesperson encouraged me to lie about my income so that I would be eliigable for enough credit to cover the cost of the job. After that, the salesman really was rushing me to schedule the installation.

I live in an apartment and I can't make modifications to my home unless I have approval from the condominium association and I explained this to the salespreson several times, but he was insistant that I schedule the installation right then and there and did not really seem to care about this. Once the salesman left, things just did not feel right.

Thankfully, as a purchaser, you have three days to exercise your right to cancel the job. I thought about all of the red flags that seemed to pop up during this process and talked it over with my wife and we felt like the whole operation was very shady and over priced and we canceled. After reading the other comments on this thread, I am very glad that I did not go with Empire Today and will go with a local contractor.

Paid $5000 to have ceramic tile floor installed over 400sq. ft. Within one month the floor was coming loose, grout cracking.

Came back to install floor. They stuffed wood with nails down my vents, grout on walls and wood trim, killed parts of my front yard and used my side yard as a waste site from buckets.

Do not fall for the sales pitch. They are not the best. Broken piece of tile used to install in closet, and on and on.

Don't expect them to clean up after themselves. I will be happy to talk to anyone about it.

Very dissatisfied. Had to pay 50.00 for estimate for flooring and carpet.

Did not receive my 50.00 back for almost 30 days after I notified the salesman that I was not going with empire because their estimate was 5,000 more than what our local company was. Very unprofessional and a total rip off!!!! Found out that the salesman that came to my house did not even cancel my order and that they had ordered my flooring and carpet.

Big mistake to go with empire.Trying to contact them by phone the person I talked to told me several times that my check was in the mail, obviously it wasn't as it took almost 30 days to get to me. She was so unprofessional, tried to tell me several times that I only had the sales person out for carpet not flooring

Two years ago Empire Today installed laminate flooring in my home's entry hallway, dining room and kitchen areas. Total cost was $4,000. After the floor was installed I told the installers that I was not satisfied with the way they had installed the molding. They had to work around stairs and a step down living room, so instead of mitering the corners of the bullnose molding and another floor molding they simply squared them off where the two met, so one portion is higher than the other and you can see the end of the unfinished molding. Their response was, "if you don't like it go buy real wood and do it yourself."

Since then I have been dealing with this company to come back out and fix the floor. They sent out one guy who looked at the floor and said there was nothing he could do but if I wanted it to look nice I should buy real wood, instead of this particle board and he'd be willing to come back out and install it for me. What does that say about their product???

Now the moldings have started to pull away from the wall and the floor jam between my bathroom and the entry can be completely lifted up. I step on nails because they are coming out of the jam.

Once again I called and this time they sent out an independent inspector who took photos of the problems. Empire Today then called me about 2 weeks later to schedule an appointment to have the problems fixed. The day of the appointment I took a day off of work to be here and when the installed called and said his name was Roger, I immediately recognized his voice and pulled my original paperwork to see it was the same guy who installed it the first time. I called the office and told them I did not want him back out here as he was the one who botched the job the first time and insulted me with his rude comments. They cancelled the appointment and rescheduled it for the following day with someone else.

The next day, a new installer by the name of Dave shows up with 2 new samples of moldings both of which were too light for my floor. He said he would have the office call me to reschedule and he'd bring out darker molding. It has been 2 weeks since that appointment and no one has contacted me. So I sent them an email and two different people have called to discuss my problem but when I call them back they are not available and do not return my phone messages.

I am going to keep on trying until they are forced to remedy this sitation, but I also intend on writing the BBB and the company president to let him/her know about their customer service or lack there of and the quality of their product and reliability is a total misconception and false advertisement. I can barely stand it when I see their commercial comes on the television.

I had a sales guy out today. His price was 50% - 100% higher than 2 estimates I received from local contractors for similar quality laminate flooring and carpeting.

Here's the catch, the price guarantee is only for identical merchandise but you can only get the same brand of laminate from Empire. They are the only ones that carry it according to the sales guy. Therefore, no low price guarantee.

His claim was that you should be willing to pay a much higher price to buy from them (whatever) for a lifetime warranty. I'll get a 25 year warranty from anyone. Dont need a lifetime warranty, that's overkill.

Salesman was rude as well.

Also, you should know that you can only get the no interest financing if your credit score is 750 or higher. Not too many folks have that.

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME!! I cant believe people fall for this garbage.

I contact Empire Carpet for an in-home estimate. The salesman, Sarkis, told me they could get me approved, no problem. He did not show me how he got the ridiculously high estimate, just the total amount. He also told me how bad my place looked.

Someone from Empire called me on the day I was to cancel the contract and told me that I had been approved and scheduled an installation.

When the installer came out, NOT FROM EMPIRE, he wanted cash! I told him I had been approved for financing. I called my salesman who told me, "yes I had been approved and he would call the manager." Then some guy from finance called me and said I had not been approved and this has never happened before. Right!

I'm SO GLAD they did not install anything for me. The workman started touching my valuable items to move them without my authorization and the foreman said he couldn't do the whole floor - I would have to paint some of it. What? That would have looked horrible.

I saw an Empire Today ad & called for an in-home estimate. When the salesman arrived he spent the whole time telling me how much better they were than other flooring companies & that I shouldn't be "cheap" & go with anyone else.

I asked the price difference between the midgrade & highgrade carpet & I was told "no more than 10%" (very sketchy).

When he finally gave me an outrageous estimate & I told him no thanks, he said he would call his manager to "see what he could do." Then he came back & said it was $400 cheaper & when I told him no thanks, he said he would forego his commission & *** an additional $200 if I agreed to the sale today. The whole thing felt like a scam.

I set up an appointment with empire carpets via the internet. They were supposed to show up 2 days later between 3-5PM. They were supposed to give me quotes on flooring and window treatments.

The woman showed up approx twenty minutes late. She also did not have the samples with her for the window treatments.

Iexplained what I was looking for and she showed me some samples. I asked what a ball park figure would be for two different samples. She measured my house and proceeded to tell me that I would need 2100 sq feet of flooring. My house measures about 1700 sq feet. I understand you want some overage, but 400sq feet? She then told me the price would be $160 a case for one and $180 a case for the other. That did not include removing the old carpet or moving furniture, etc. that would be extra. I told her that I would have to think this over. She then told me that this price included the 60% off but she could call the office to see if she could get a better deal. I said no, that at those prices, even a better deal was not good enough. She left.

The next day I went to a local (San Diego) flooring store and found the same thing for $38.00 a case!

Do Not Be Fooled!

I too was impressed with the advertisements for Empire carpet and flooring. I finally decided to give it a try and called them for the free in home estimate.

I have to say that the sales man was prompt and courteous. He did measure all my rooms and spend a good amount of time showing me samples of carpet in his mid range. I personally didn't think the carpet felt all that great compared to the carpet I already have, but he assured me that would be different after it was down with the padding. I liked their financing package and agreed to the sale.

I specifically asked him how their prices compared to Home Depot and other companies. He told me that they were the same except that Home depot would charge me to move all my furniture and extras for steps mouldings etc...

Well, after reading the reviews online I decided to cancel the order and think things over a bit more. I called Smart Carpet and Flooring for another in home estimate.

I spent over 3 hours with the salesmen and in the end I was able to not only save over $1000, but included in that price was my Master bedroom which I had to exclude previously due to cost. I am going to receive a carpet with a longer warranty as well.

I guess the moral is. Do your research, haggle a lot, and speak spanish.

Oh yeah, two days after cancelling the job I received a call at 7 am from a spanish speaking installer telling me he was going to be there in 40 minutes. I told him not to come and that I cancelled. He said ok so I hung up. Then he called again and I told him the same.

When I hung up I called cust. service. She told me that my cancellation had not been completed. Then she told me that they would take 800 off the price if I still would consider using them.

Too late honey! So thats the long and the short of it.

Tortured Customer:

We were trying to sell our house, so we decided to replace the kitchen Linoeum. Of the seven showings of our house so far, three of the people have made specific comments on the kitchen floor!

"It feels spongy and fake."

"Is this floor plastic?"

"The kitchen floor looks like linoleum."

"The floor looks dated."

We paid $3,822 for an eyesore that does nothing to add any value to our house.

Also, notice when they show you samples of the laminate flooring they are mounted on pieces of wood, so they look twice as thick as than really are !!

I never purchased from Empire Carpeting, and for good reason. (After reading so many bad reviews, I'm really glad I didn't...)

I had seen their commercials that claim big savings . I figured they wouldn't be the best quality around, but I WAS expecting the cheapest prices.

The sales person came out and gave us an estimate of approximately $4000 for laminate flooring in our family room and hallway. We also got estimates from Lowes, Home Depot, and a local flooring company. Empire was the MOST expensive by at least $1000 at ALL locations, AND their product was of a lesser quality and they had a puny selection.

So in the end, just by actually doing our research, we saved money, got a better product, and a more reputable company by NOT going with Empire.

Empire flooring is the worst company out there. There workmanship is poor and the floors come up. I am now having to seek a lawyer to sue them.

Do not buy from this sorry company!!!!! Terrrible horrible worst company out there, do from them.

This is the worst experience I have ever had with any company in the US. They hae workers that can't even speak english and do not know what the *** they are doing! Please Do no tbuy from these JERKS, they SUCK!!!!!!!!! They are the worst floors come up at the seam poor quality flooring.