Empire Today

Didn't even show up for the installation appointment or call to let me know they would miss. Sent me an automated email to confirm a new appointment two weeks from the original date. I had to call them and they told me they don't even carry the carpet I had selected just 4 weeks prior anymore. Absolute headache to cancel and even get a direct answer from anyone.

Buying a vinyl "luxury plank" floor with so called lifetime, transferable warranty is worthless and they do not live up to that at all. My wife and I spent $13,000.00 on our luxury plank floor. In less than half a year the floor got chipped which is supposedly covered by their warranty. Nope, not alt all and we had to spend $400.00 more to have them repair which sucked. Six months later the chipping is larger in the same spot and frankly ugly to look at. Now there are chips all over the floor. Empire Today is the worst thing my wife and I which compared to buying a timeshare let's you know how much we hate this company. We are going to have another floor put in but this time with a real flooring company rather than a bank like empire subcontracting to floor companies. I would give them a 0 level rating if I could.

They did excellent.

We ordered a carpet on November 13th and called on November 15th to ask if we could see the samples again before our install date (November 29th) We called, emailed and texted Empire daily ever since then and no one was able to help us. All we get is the standard "we are sorry for the inconvenience, someone will contact you soon." We are also getting married at our home on December 5th so were up against a time crunch. Empire did call to confirm our installation and when I told them that I needed to see the samples again they said that someone would be in contact with us soon. I eventually gave up and contacted a local company who I ended up going through instead.

The plank flooring was put down. Installation crews did a great job and were punctual. Carpet crews had to reschedule from a Tuesday to a Thursday. The crews never showed up Thursday. I had to call customer service to figure all this out. I spoke with customer service, cooperate customer service, and my sales rep (it’s Friday and was promised calls back today and received none back). I also have no idea when my carpet is due to be installed or if it’s even going to be installed at all. This is been the most unprofessional experience I’ve ever had period. Whether getting work done at my house, customer service or in a retail store, I’ve never been ignored to the point of leaving a review online. If I had to give someone advice spend the extra money and have someone else do your flooring work. Their installers are very skilled and work hard but this company is completely miss managed and they’ve lost a customer for life. In summary the work in my house is half done and I’ve been trying to get ahold of someone to help me for two days and no ones bothered to lift a finger. Do not use Empire Today.

My house look nice but it was expensive. The price I paid is a lot but the did not have lot work done.

Don't be fooled by Empire's claim of professionalism. The customer service and promises were good until the installation. Their installation took two days longer than estimated, left a huge mess, the floor has some issues, and customer service won't respond to us. We had ceramic tile replaced with vinyl tile in our kitchen and hallway and foyer. Empire only sent two people to do this job and they were not prepared. They did not have the plastic to cover the kitchen properly, they did not have the right tools, and they did even have all the tile. This caused them to leave the job frequently together to get what they were missing which made the job 4 days long and we could not use our kitchen. They did not cover the kitchen and area properly so significant dust entered every part of our first floor. Glue was left all over the floor that we are still scrapping off. Where the floor meets the cabinets looks terrible due to a change in floor level(no solution was offered). In the foyer, concrete they used to level the floor ended up all over the baseboards and stairs. The workers did not clean up properly, leaving a mess each day when they left. We had to hire an expensive cleaning company to come in after them and will need to get a handyman to fix the quarter round and baseboard issues. Our sales agent referred us multiple times to his boss who still has not contacted us. Hence we are writing this review because of silence and inaction on their part. The inability to even communicate with us to address our concerns means we would never hire them again.

Empire replaced the carpeting on my sunporch and put a highly visible seam in a very high traffic area (and the seam is in 3 separate pieces across the portion of my porch that opens to the yard). The installers told me the seams would disappear when the glue dried and they did not. The installers also got carpet glue on my new Thompson Creek sliding glass doors. Empire's customer service rep says they have a lot of seam issues with the indoor/outdoor carpet product I purchased and I was told a replacement carpet MUST have a seam 90 minutes before the install team was due to arrive. I requested a full refund and am not willing to settle for a 50% refund and no carpet warranty. So please beware, they have terrible customer service and I will never do business with them again. I'm working on alternatives to replacing the carpet.

I called Empire today, from Angie's list, and had someone come out to give me a quote. The sales person from professional enough, but that was the end of the professionalism. I called the day before the installation to pay for the work to be done, and asked to apply the coupon that they gave me (through Angie's List). That's when the trouble started! First they told me that they wouldn't honor the coupon. So, I went to cancel the order, because I thought that was shady (offering a coupon and then not honoring it). Then when they transferred me to the "Cancelation Dept.", they tried to convince me that the coupon was already applied to my quote (It doesn't show a discount or anything like that in the quote). Then they offered to give me roughly $200 off of the installation "to keep my business". I said "No thanks, I would like to cancel". Then they tried the "Let me speak to my manager" routine, like a used car salesman. I was calling to pay for my installation of more than $4,200 and use my $500 coupon that THEY sent me! Instead, I ended up cancelling the order and now I am going to find a more reputable company. I an property investor, and own my own home. Instead of winning over a customer, for multiple future sales, they lost a potential customer for life! Shady!

.

Never showed. I had to confirm days before that I'd be here for installation, yet the morning of I never got a call with my installation time. I called back to inquire as to when theyd be here and was assured that I'd probably just be an afternoon installation. Afternoon came and went, no call. I called back and was told there were not enough installers and I was cancelled. Still nobody ever called to tell me this, I had to beg for info. I was not able to speak to a manager but was told one would call me back. never did. So i called AGAIN, got dumped into a voicemail of unknown source by this customer service rep. I called AGAIN and got transferred to a floor supervisor. She e-mailed a manager to call me and FINALLY he did. The best he could do was reschedule my appt. So I cancelled. My deposit refund will take up to two weeks to post. Model of efficiency. THEY REALLLY should not be in business.

Delivery window was set for 8 hours on a Thursday. After two calls to tell me they were on their way and arriving soon, they did not show up. When they showed up the next day, they did not have enough carpet because the initial measurement was significantly wrong. (Measured 600 sf for what I now know is an 800 sf space). Delivery guys were unaware of and unprepared for a few other requests that had been prearranged and prepaid. Delivery guys promised to come back on another day to complete the installation, but I decided to cancel and prevent any further disasters. Empire eventually refunded my deposit so I was not out any money. I appreciated that.

We are very happy with the company.They got the job done very quickly, very well, clean, neat and polite.

The salesman came out and seemed pretty knowledgeable about the products that he represented. I told him that time was of the essence since we have new tenants that would occupy the premises that next week. I told him that we would pay in advance as not to cause any delay and to make sure that we could be installed in time. We made the decision to go with them and he confirmed 2 installation dates for the two products to be installed. He also gave me his number so that i can call him if there were any problems or if I needed any more work on other properties. Carpet installation day came and I was told that they would be there between 8-10 Thursday. The installers called me and they were lost, went to another office, etc. They finally arrived at 1:00PM. (Apparently EMPIRE gave them the incorrect address) I showed them the rooms where the carpet was to be installed. I also told them that the cove base molding was to be replaced. They said that they were not told to do so and they were not supplied the material. They called the installation office and was told that the contractor that will be installing the vinyl the next day would install it. The next day the vinyl contractor came out to do the install. Although they showed up on time they were not told to do the additional install. They also did not have enough material to do the additional work. They called and texted the EMPIRE install dept in Baltimore to ask about this. They left when they were finished and they said that I would get a call Saturday morning to complete the install. I waited for the call but never got it. I called EMPIRE customer service and my salesman at 2:30PM Saturday to inquire whether the install was still going to happen. Customer service said they couldn't find anybody in the Baltimore to answer their call and they were probably closed already. They assured me that it was given top priority and that i would get a call Monday. My salesman told me that customer service was my best shot at getting the install completed and that he would return my call right away, he never did. I called back, he never answered. I called customer service Monday and they said that the Baltimore office was not answering, but that i would be getting a call Tuesday as my incident was not recorded until Friday and they had 24 hours to respond (not including weekends). No calls on Tuesday. I called customer service and they told me that nobody was answering in Baltimore. They said customer service cannot do anything if the local office doesn't answer. They again promised me a call but haven't received any. Only reason I gave a C for professionalism is because installers were nice and did good work. Otherwise F for everybody else would be applicable.

The salesman was very nice and polite. He made it clear that he would be there for us if we needed anything. He stated that they could install carpet any day. He never answered our calls again. We selected a day 2 weeks out, and they promised that we would be an early appointment because it was a large job. On the day of installation, corporate called to say they didn't have enough carpet and wouldn't be coming out. They "offered" to come out the next day, first thing. We received a call from the installer stating that he would be to the house by 9 AM. At 10AM, we called him and he said they were trying to get the carpet and were still at the warehouse. They finally arrived after 1PM and started work. The team was very nice, but it wasn't fair to them or us that they arrived so late in the day. The job took until midnight to finish. We missed two days of work for this installation, and it really didn't need to be so difficult. It's definitely a poorly managed business.

They laid the tile down well and I am happy with the tile that I picked out, but I am not totally happy with the job because the guys put a really ugly white molding up against my oak cabinets and it looks very bad. I have no problem with the flooring that they installed. After all these years, it's still in good shape.

My interaction with them was fine.

They were excellent.

It went well. The only thing I was a little put off by (and it was just a little) They require a 10% down payment to give you an estimate. IT WILL be returned, if you decide not to use them, or used for the bill if you do. But, they only give you 3 days to make up your mind, and its not easy to find out how to cancel, if you decide to. BUT, they were extremely punctual and did everything well.

If I had their number I would tear it up. The work is terrible.  You know how you do a carpet and you got a run going into your carpet.  I got that, all over the place.  When we called them about it they laughed.  I don't like them.  On responsiveness,  not good at all.  They couldn't call me back and cancel it out.  They're not good on responding back or coming out and repairing.  Right now I've got embarrassing puffs in my carpet; when you got a line in your carpet.  I don't know what you call it when you have a line in your carpet, they didn't pull it tight enough.  Professionalism was terrible.  Don't use them.  Find somebody else.  The quality was terrible.

Told us on the scheduled morning of our installation that they no longer carry the carpet we ordered. Also, they didn't call us, we had to call them after it seemed they were running late. We requested that the manager get back to us about the mistake but they never contacted us so we cancelled. A few weeks later, we got a call to confirm our re-scheduled date (we never rescheduled with them). What the heck were they planning to install since they don't carry our requested carpet anymore? Had to have a LONG conversation over the phone again to make sure they properly cancelled our appointment this time.

The sales person who came out was an absolute con artist. DO NOT TRUST WHAT THEY SAY AND DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING UNLESS YOU TRULY WANT TO BUY FROM THEM. He told my wife that she had to sign an acknowledgment of the estimate but whipped through the document on the ipad without giving her a chance read it. He stopped just enough to let her know that she had till 5/17/17 to decide. We got a copy of what she signed later and it turned out to be a contract for services that if you didn't cancel in 5 days, we would be assessed a 15% cancellation fee and of the $4,400.00 estimate, that would have been almost $700.00 of a con job. My wife had to go the BBB to find a fax number to their legal department because despite the fact that we could "send the cancellation electronically", there was no contact to do so and the legal office that was required to receive this, is in Illinois. I am looking into ways to file an official complaint because of these kind of fraudulent sales tactics. I'm glad my work in the legal field has rubbed off on my wife for her to review the document as soon as she received it. The worst part about it was that the material they showed us was of low quality to begin with and the price they charged for it was outlandish, only to be made worse by them trying to con us into locking in with them. I sent out my notice of cancellation both by fax and by certified mail.

Carpeting installation went ok, but our first red flag should have been the salesman. There is a frequent TV commercial mentioning buying X rooms get X free, and he laughed at us saying that was wrong and they offered no such thing. Carpet installation in the end went fine (Although the end tacks constantly ***** our toes on certain stairs), but the bathtub liner was a horrible decision. We had the liner installed in July 2010 and had to replace it in 2017 but we should have replaced it much sooner. After about a year after installation the adhesive holding the liner came began to undo itself so the bottom of the tub had a loud sticky clack to it when stepped on in certain spots. After a few years of this clacking the tub started to crack in 2015/2016 from the wear and tear. When we called Empire about repairs/replacement they told us they no longer do bathtub liners and as a result would not honor their warranties and work guarantees and hung up on us. We hired another company to replace the liner in April 2017. When the liner was removed several problems were immediately obvious, the first being they did not remove the floor decals on the bottom of the tub, which provided a weak spot for the liner and adhesive. Second, the liner was a generic size and did not fit the model bathtub. You can see in the attached photo of the tub after the Empire liner was removed how large a gap there was from the poor fit. I will never use Empire Today again. It's important people know they do not stand by their work.

The customer service person hung up on my husband when he called the first time asking why no one showed up.

It went so poorly that the Floor Rep during estimate was clumsy and hit his head twice on my kitchen light and then tripped on my copper ice maker line breaking it causing damage. Three months later Empire Today is not returning my call (ice maker still not repaired) regarding the repair despite transfer to a Sale supervisor. Initially they responded but then sent me in circles although they stated it would be resolved in 3-5 business days and they would review pictures and estimate, I thought it was resolved then it went back to unresolved. Stay away from Empire, buyer beware. They want to charge $10 square foot for vinyl planks and everyone else is charging $6 to $7. Now I have to pay out of pocket for a repair that should be insured by Empire but they won't give me the insurance information.