Budget Blinds of the Eastside

The person that answered the phone and scheduled my appointment for an estimate was very professional. However, my experience with the sales person was not. I had accidently forgot my appointment as something had come up that particular day. My voicemail had two messages from the sales person stating that she would not be able to keep my appointment as she was having car trouble and would like to schedule the appointment for later the same day, however, neither message contained an apology. I called back immediately, not long after the second voicemail stating my relief that I had not inconvenienced her with coming to my house and to apologize for my oversite. I stated that I could reschedule with her immediately. This was three days ago and I have never heard back. At this point, I will not be using their services as there are many other "A" rated companies to choose from.

I am extremely frustrated with this company, and would not recommend them to anyone. Their initial quote from their rookie salesman (Terry) was for almost $13,000, but he agreed to drop the price to around $12,000, which was still way overpriced. He promised me a 2 week installation timeline from the initial payment date. However, it actually took them over 2 months to complete the installation, since they ordered some wrongly sized blinds. Actually, most of the blinds that were installed were cut about 1/2" to 1" too narrow, and did not fill the whole window width. To this date, there are still large gaps in my window coverings, allowing light to pass and anyone on the outside to look in! When I complained to the salesperson about this, he even had the nerve to ask me to pay for the blinds I wanted to replace all over again! I said no way in h***, and he said he would talk to the owner (Tommy), who never got back to me or returned any of my calls. At that time they were going through a change of ownership and I complained to the new owner (Tim) several months later. He also tried to charge me another $1,000 to replace 4 French door blinds that were cut about 1" too narrow to begin with! Furthermore, many of the valances were cut crooked initially, and they had to recut about half a dozen of them. They should have used a miter saw instead of a hand saw initially, as I suggested. They also marred some of my window sills during the installation process, and I had to refinish some of them. I also requested a warranty replacement on a defective blind, and it took them nearly 5 months and about 5 trips to get it replaced correctly. Bottom line, avoid this company and go with Costco instead. They have a better warranty and won't try to rip you off.

With the first mis-shape where they could not install the top down version, the sales person (Terry Thomas) tried to sell us another one charging $800 more. After we rejecting that idea they claimed that it was communicated to us what we ordered was impossible (but they placed the order anyway, and the written order say differently). After the 3rd installation in end of December, the installer found out the company failed to order another honeycomb was not ordered (the top half of the window above the door). The 4th installation was scheduled for Jan 2008. The day before that final installation, we got a call to tell us they could not get the window treatment (altrium type). No one ever showed up, and they sent us a refund for half of the window that's now left open since they could not delivery. No more blaming on us this time. The whole process was a nightmare and an ordeal, I would do anything to avoid it again.