Empire Today

NEVER hire this company. From my experience, they are not competent, not responsive, not responsible (don’t want to admit their own mistakes) and do not refund money when items are returned. They have so far been unwilling to settle what even they admit is a legitimate claim for compensation for completely butchering a floor installation. July 2017 - Empire recommended and sold me poor quality and inappropriate flooring: Manufacturer: LW Mountain Style Name/Number: Vallette Color Name/Number: Acacia Samba Brown Size Involved in Claim: 1841 Type of Surface: Vinyl Plank Click-Lock Empire recommended this flooring for both the upstairs and downstairs as well as the stairs. But when their installers looked at it, the installers showed me that it was inappropriate flooring for stairs. Empire had to order a second type of flooring and trim for the stairs. Empire charged me additional $5K and did not refund any for the extra vinyl flooring I paid for. The installers refused to remove the original wood flooring on the lower floor. Instead, they installed the vinyl directly over the original flooring. I was charged for the removal and never got a refund. I reported this to the sales rep and she did nothing but note it on the paperwork. In addition, Empire had ordered and charged me for cement to level out the lower floor when the old flooring had been removed. I had the installers return it to Empire. This charge was not refunded. The installation was very messy and the installers left glue around baseboards and did not clean up. I called Empire repeatedly to get the floors cleaned and they did not respond to my request to do so. The installation took much longer to complete than originally estimated because of the bad recommendation to use the vinyl on the stairs. The installers broke plumbing in the bathroom that I had to pay for and I had to hire someone to set up the TV a second time. January 2018 Within 5 months of installation, floor humped up 1+ inches in one spot (the kitchen as you enter from the dining area and hall) and up to ½” in other places. After the flooring humped up, I did an online review of complaints about this flooring. Many reviews indicated that ******* was a known problem with this flooring. I called customer service and was told they would get back to me. They didn’t. I called several times to follow up as floor was getting worse. It was also ******* up in several locations upstairs. March – The floor is getting worse – the humped floor in the kitchen is 1 – 1.5” higher than the rest of the floor. This has created a trip hazard. On March 11, Empire sent two installers out to “repair” the floor. The installers took one look and said that the floor had been improperly installed and would have to be entirely replaced both downstairs and upstairs. They called back to Empire while they were here and reported this to Empire. Thus, in addition to being poor quality flooring, the vinyl flooring was installed badly. I got no follow up from Empire and had to keep calling them. Finally in May, Empire told me they would send two new installers out and I had to move out to have them repair the floor. May 11, 2018 I was told a supervisor, Mario would be out 5/24 to replace the floor. I was told that I would have to move everything out of the downstairs rooms. I reminded the Empire installation supervisor, Joe, that I was a 70 year old woman with a bad back and could not move the large furniture. He said the installers would take care of that. From 5/11 – 5/22, I packed all dishes, art, and collectables that were in the living room, dinning room, and family/kitchen room. I removed all items from the pantry. I removed all small furniture, packed items and carpets and stored them in the garage. This took well over 60 hours of my time. May 24, 2018 Two new installers arrived (not Mario, the supervisor as I had been promised). They took one look at the problem and said, “We can’t fix this. The entire floor needs to be replaced.” They called Joe and left. Since then, Empire has continued to jerk me around and not resolve the problem. They have admitted that the flooring was not good quality and had known problems and that it was not installed correctly. They have finally admitted that it will all have to be replaced. I have had to hire a lawyer to help me get them to respond. I had to hire a professional floor inspector to do a report on it. Empire hired their own inspector. Both inspectors said the vinyl flooring was not good quality and it was installed very badly. I'm appalled that a company of their size would be so difficult and insensitive. For example, twice, the local installation manager has sent a crew (2 installers) out to "fix" the floor. Both times the installers looked at the problems with the floor and said, "That can't be fixed, it has to all be replaced". I have been greatly inconvenienced and stressed because of Empire’s poor quality flooring, incompetent installation, and poor response from Customer Service. I have been contacting Empire and trying to resolve the problems with the flooring since February 2018. I have been unable to use a large portion of the house – particularly the living room, dining room and kitchen. The hazardous bump has prevented me from inviting family and friends over due to the liability of possibly tripping on the floor. The stress and inconvenience will not be over with a payment from Empire. I will still have to hire people to remove and replace the faulty, poor quality flooring that Empire left me with. I will have to pack and move out so that a proper installation can be done. As of November 26, 2018, I have received no compensation from Empire.

Scheduling the bid was easy and the sales rep showed up on time. However the sales rep was extremely unprofessional from the beginning. Upon walking into the house he started measuring and then proceeded to talk down to me like I was a child. Telling me how expensive the job would be in a way that was demeaning and patronizing. I knew it was an expensive job and let him know that I knew. He proceeded to act like I had no clue and continually tried to down sell me on what I wanted. After he finished his measurements, which took much longer the it should have. He went to his car and pulled samples. He only brought in about five different wood choices and when pressed he said that is all they carry, which was untrue. So we picked a wood type for the bid purposes. The sales guy then got on his calculator and just wrote down a price for the job. He did not itemize the bid at all. No price itemization for the demo of the old floors. No itemization of the install cost. No itemization of materials. Incredibly frustrating and unprofessional experience. Needless to say we did not except the bid and went with another local company.

So the sales appointment went amazing, salesperson was nice and informative. We decided to go with a new laminate floor. We confirmed, twice actually, the install for Saturday and preceded to clear out our downstairs in preparation for the floor. I get a call the morning of the installation, "We don't have the product, and we don't know when we are going to get it. Call on Monday and we'll know." Don't have the product? Seriously, why in the world did you confirm the installation when you didn't even have the materials? Skip ahead to Monday and they STILL don't know when it will come in. I'm giving them one more chance. Normally I wouldn't write a review before actually having work done, but their customer service has been so terrible I just want to save people the hassle. Go with someone else, and actually get the work done.

Member was dissatisfied with the Vynl flooring colors. Did not want two different colors.

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e After the financial part was completed, I was contacted by the contractor with a date and time.  They called when they were on their way and arrived on time.  We reviewed the carpet and padding I had chosen to make sure that it was correct.  They moved the necessary furniture and  proceeded to do the work.  They were friendly and professional.  The completed the work on time and when finished, they cleaned up all excess and put the furniture back in place.  We did an inspection of the work to make sure every thing was complete and done to my satisfaction.  I signed the necessary paperwork and i  given his contact number in case there were any problems in the future.
I was very satisfied with the work and the installers.

I called Empire since I see their commercials on TV all the time.  The good news, the sales guy was able to come over my house and show me samples the next night at 7pm.  The bad news, is everything else.  I honestly didn't know what to expect when I called Empire, I guess I was expecting a hardwood floor install contractor to come over and give me a price estimate.  I'm planning on removing existing carpet and tile throughout the downstairs (first level) of my house that's approximately 850 sq feet.  The *sales guy* comes and has samples of engineered hardwood and solid bamboo floors.  He quoted me $13,590 for the bamboo and $11,440 for the dark engineered hardwood handscraped (materials and installation).  I was like wow, that's pretty pricey compared to the other ESTIMATES I got from previous hardwood floor contractors.  The sales guy was at my house from 7PM to almost 9:30PM.  I could NOT get rid of this guy.  I don't know how many times I told him that I called JUST FOR AN ESTIMATE and that I was not ready to buy yet, hence getting an ESTIMATE!  He quoted me the price.  I told him it was too high.  He said he'd call his manager on the phone to see if he could get the price down lower.  I told him I wasn't interested since the price was significantly higher than I wanted to spend.  He was insistent to call his manager to try and lower the price so I agreed to have him call his manager (just so we can get this estimate over and done with).  He called his manager and he knocked off $2K from the price.  The sales guy said, "I'm only able to get your this price TONIGHT, if you put a deposit".  I was like W** am I at a car dealership right now???  I told him no thanks, yet he still pushed and pushed, he told me I only needed to put $1,500 deposit to save this "special" price tonight.  I said NO.  Then he calls his manager AGAIN, and supposedly the manager says that a $50 deposit would be good enough.  HAHA.  I seriously felt like I was being punked on a TV show... That was probably one of the worst home-improvement-estimate experience I ever had.  Thanks for wasting 2-1/2 hours of my life that I can't get back Empire NOT Today!   

I should've done my homework. I'm usually more diligent than this so shame on me.  But I want to warn people out there. Do not use Empire! I ordered a supposedly upgraded laminate flooring.  When the installers (who by the way had nothing to do with Empire because they were contracted out and were actually very good) arrived with the product, I was stunned at how cheap the laminate was.  I was assured by the Installation Coordinator at Empire that this is the "normal industry grade" laminate that I would find at a Lowes or Home Depot.  Baloney!  This stuff is crap.  I'm lucky if this stuff will last 5 years. I'm sure I'll have to replace the floors sooner than I would like. It pains me that I paid good money for this junk!!!  Stay away from Empire.

Two years later, the carpet is worn much faster than it should have been. It has bumps all over and needs to be stretched. Upon Contacting Empire, (they responded two weeks later) they told me that the carpet installation was only covered for one year and that it would cost a minimum of $150.00 for them to just come out and look at what needed to be done. I am seriously disappointed as I have had carpet in every single house I have ever had and NEVER have had Carpet that needed to be stretched after two years... I have consulted another company and they have told me that this should never happen if installed correctly.

About 2 months ago I reached out to a few companies to get estimates  for installing hardwood in my condo. I process including getting approval from HOA when I select the company. The process with Empire started with a phone call to their call center and scheduled an in-home estimate. A day before the appointment It got re-scheduled by the call center. The day of the appt I get a call from the sales rep about re-scheduling and we did. The day of the re-scheduled appt I  received a call again from the rep itself and we keep re-scheduling a few times due to him sitting in traffic or not being able to make it due to other appointments. (I am basically rescheduling directly with the sales rep - no call center involved). Eventually I gave up after a few tries and dis-qualified empire today from my selection process. 
About 2 weeks ago - my project got halted as the contractor I selected wasn't able to satisfy the HOA insurance requirements. I had approval for my project but not for the contractor. I was shopping again for a  new company to do the install. I decided to give empire today another shot. The very first time I called for scheduling in-home appt same thing happened and I got a call from empire to re-schedule. I went ahead an re-scheduled for saturday 1:00pm. I waited till 2:30 - since already 1.5 hours had past - upon calling the call center I found out they never assigned a sales rep. I was furious...Next day I get a call from someone to give me $150 off for the missed appointment and tried to re-schedule. On the next appt, the sales rep was late. I scheduled a window of 5:00-7:00pm for the appt and the rep showed up at 7:30pm (what's worse is I had to call the empire today to find this out and eventually got a call from the rep). I really wouldn't have put up with this in ordinary circumstances, but since my contractor didn't quality I didn't have much choice but to take my chances so, I waited. The rep that showed up Nick Gonzales - seemed nice..friendly. We had specific requirements as the HOA had already approved certain specs and we were half way thru the process. We talked about all the requirements and he said he'll call me the next day. It's been 2 weeks since my appt. and I have not heard anything from anyone at Empire. I called empire call center and recieved a call from local sales office. The lady guaranteed that Nick will call within 24 hours. I even obtained the sales rep's phone number and tried calling him several times and left VM's but still nothing. I sent several emails to the rep (I had his email from when he came to the appointment - he confirmed while he was there he received the documents I sent him). 
I think Empire Today is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. They have no sense of professionalism or courtesy...everytime they screw up they'll give you 100 bucks but what they need to understand is that money is nothing...my project was worth atleast $15-20K and I don't care about getting 100 bucks off..I care about exceptional quality and customer service. 
If you ever have to deal with them just be careful and don't let them waste your time..cuz they really don't give a s***. 

Installers showed up early on a monday morning,emoved and replaced the laminate flooring in the kitchen area and replaced with the new limestone/vynil product. Installer was knowlegeable and very polite. All flooring in the kitchen was removed and replaced in the same day. Installer did a fantastic job.

On Wednesday of the same week a new group of installers showed up early and began removing the old harwood flooring from the remainder of the house. All larger furniture was moved by the installers, old flooring was removed and replaced by Saturday of the same week. Installers were friendly, knowlegeable and very hard workers. All flooring installed was completed on time and all debriswere hauled away upon completeion each day.

Flooring throughout our home was done very well and looks great. I would definely recommend Empire Today to anyone needing flooring or carpet installed.

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As I mentioned above- we are very happy with the end result, but the sales side obviously over commits what the workers are capable of doing, which puts the workers in a tough position.

The sales person didn't have the stain master carpets with him, and so I chose a different carpet. The sales person could have been more prepared. They crew was on time, and did a good job. They were very efficient.

**Update, I sent a letter to the CEO and VP of Customer Relations regarding my complaint.  I received a response within a day and they offered to pay for the cost to repair our bath tub.  Had we received this type of customer service with the original complaint we would have been very satisfied.  Not happy with the time lost and frustration but am satisfied with the end result.  Thank you to Empire for following through and paying for the damages.

We received many quotes for carpet in our newly remodeled home in Los Gatos. Empire wasn't the most expensive but they weren't the least either. The selection wasn't very expansive but we were able to find carpet we liked in their smart strand line which claims to be almost completely stain-resistant. We ultimately decided to proceed with Empire because they are a well-known National company and we knew they would back their product and work (something we've found to be a very important thing during our remodeling project).

The installers were very professional, showed up on time and did a very good job with the carpet installation. They even cut up strips of extra carpet to place in front of all the doors until we could get door mats. We were thrilled with the installation until the following day when our plumber showed up to install our new $2,000 bath tub & discovered that it was slashed in several places on the top edges of the tub. The tub was boxed and out on our deck for the day until our plumber could come install. Unfortunately the carpet installers had used the tub box as a cutting board when they were cutting the carpet strips and slashed right through the box and the tub.
 
We contacted the office are were relieved when the first person we spoke with said "Don't worry, this is why we have insurance". They sent out the area install manager & this is when the experience took a significant turn for the worse. She showed up at our house and was very defensive from the beginning. She told me that her installers never cut carpet on a deck and only out in the street. When I informed her that my husband saw her installers cutting the carpet on the deck she changed her tune and said that they may have cut on the deck but would never cut on the box. We even had the knife they had left behind with carpet fibers on it & let her take it with her (after documenting with several photos). She told us she doubted her guys did it but would talk to them. We received a call a few days later from her informing us that she spoke with her installers and they told her they didn't do it and made it very clear to me that she believed her installers over the customer. She also said her husband works at a paint shop and told her the knife we gave her is a painter's knife but gave no explanation as to why it was there by the box with carpet fibers on it. We elevated the claim to her boss but had the same results. We are now going to take them to court & waste even more time and money on this mess. We are so disappointed with Empire's lack of professionalism in handling this issue. We will never use this company again and would urge anyone thinking of using them to think twice. Terrible experience.

Overall, , apart from the above, the installation was a good experience

The floors had particle board underneath, and some parts needed to be replaced. We paid $5600 for the hardwood flooring and only an additional $1000 for the particle boards to be fixed. We were not charged for our furniture to be moved. The lead man, Esteban (ID 5149), did a great job! He did a walk-through with me at the end. They did make one small adjustment, to my satisfaction. The crew was very polite. I'm looking to have bedroom carpet installed and will be calling them for an estimate. Caution, that you would you will need a panel in front of dishwasher hardwood floor will not come out.

I spent about $10000. It was a big job. My experience with them was good. I think I will use them again. They were on time, they were considerate of the people living in the house, and they completed the job on time. They did a good job. I didn’t have any problems with the installation.

I called & they sent a salesman out within 3 hours. Their TV ad was advertising buy one room get 2 free. The salesman said he was giving us a better price then that, and we ended up paying $3,000 for 844sq ft of carpet. He recommended we do not up grade the pad, which I definitely wish we had upgraded it. A few days later I went to a friend's house who also had Empire Today do his carpet (the same day they installed ours) He had 1,400 sq ft of carpet (same quality) installed and a much better quality pad, all for the same price we paid. He said they originally wanted almost 3 times the price, but eventually came down to $3,000. So be aware you can negotgiate the price quite a bit (wish I had known that). The installers showed up on time the next morning & they were very professional and did do an exceptionally good job of installing the carpet. It was very nice that they moved all the furniture too (except electronics..TV's computer, stereo and knicknacks)

There were a lot of terrible things on line about them but I had them come out. The gentleman that came out was professional and I didn’t get any pressure the choose them. The only negative is that the crew that does the actual work hasn’t been on time.

They did a good job and the price was good compared to other quotes.

Very disappointing that Empire Today makes appointments that they know they would not be able to keep. I was told representative had 3 other appointments at the same time and that they were sorry that they missed mine.

I would recommend them in the future.