ComplaintsforPremier Flooring Installation

• Initial Complaint

  03/17/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  This company has been unprofessional at communication as soon as they took my money. I've been waiting on a refund of just over $1k for a month now. The original material we purchased through them wasn't coming, so they cancelled the order, ordered a product that was $1028.75 less of expensive, promised a refund for that amount by the end of day on February 18th 2022 and have been unresponsive since then. I finally got the office manager on the phone yesterday and she said Mike (floor manager) was taking care of it, but I don't believe them. When Mike wanted my money and business, he was quick to respond. The moment I had paid for the job, he dropped off the radar. My complaint about this company goes deeper than this. They've been swindling me from day one and have abysmal communication skills. I run my own business and was deeply patient with them but they crossed too many lines and filing a report now that they're ghosting me about my partial refund only seems appropriate.

  Business response

  03/21/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/03/17) */ First of all my initial and only communication with Mrs. ****** was today 3/17 when she came into our showroom demanding a refund. Her original selection was backordered as there was a production date with the manufacturer, and that production date kept getting pushed back. Mrs. ****** ask us to cancel the original order, which we did. She also ask us to find another option which we provided her but again the inventory was not in stock so we were given a production date. At that point when this was communicated to Mrs. ****** she decided to look for a cork floor online, and found a company called World Floors direct that had a cork floor she liked in inventory. At that time she ask us if we would install the floor if she purchased it, and we told her we typically do not do that, but given the circumstances we would do that for her. We also mentioned that we know nothing about this manufacturer or this product, so any material related issues may present a problem after installation. Mrs. ****** initially stated she was going to buy this floor from World Floors herself, but then ask us to purchase the floor for her because she didn't have the money to pay for it. Her entire order with us is being financed through ********* Bank, and she wanted us to purchase the floor so the cost of the floor would be financed. WE agreed to do that as well. We purchased the floor and passed the cost on to her without adding any additional money for material receiving and handling. The order was Fedexed out to us, but Fedex did not deliver it on time. They claimed that they were at our facility several times but no one was there to receive the material. We have a warehouse which is open 6 days a week and Monday through Friday we receive materials from 7 am until 4 pm. Sat. 7 til noon. Fedex deliveres to us almost every day, but they told Mrs. ****** that no one was there to receive the order. I believe this info. that Fedex provided is not accurate at all. We made several calls and inquiries with Fedex about this order and they told us they lost it. When the order finally arrived, we loaded it on a truck and installed it that very same day. As I already mentioned I have never spoken to Mrs. ****** until today when she walked into my showroom, so I had absolutely no knowledge of everything that happened with her order until today when I spoke with our manager Eric. The actual salesman that was in her home was Antonio, and we have not taken any money from Mrs. ****** as I mentioned already her entire order is financed. Today she was given a credit to the amount that SHE provided which was $1028.75. She provided this amount as she took the initial cost of the cork floor that she selected, and deducted the cost of her final selection which she found online. When Mrs. ****** received the documentation that we provided her from the ********* bank credit she refused to sign it. She sat down in our showroom and called ********* bank asking them when she would receive the credit. ********** told Mrs. ****** it would take 24-48 hours before the credit would be posted. Mrs. ****** then told us that she would return with the signed credit document after she sees that it has been credited to her account. I honestly do not understand why Mrs. ****** feels like she was "swindled". There were communication issues which caused the delay in her refund, but they were caused by our manager Eric who failed to communicate with Mrs. ****** in a timely manner. I apologized for that in person and I followed up with an email to Mrs. ****** where I again apologized several times. When Mrs. ****** was in our showroom today she failed to mention the many details that change the entire outlook on her order. She didn't tell me she found her own flooring She didn't tell me she initially told us she would buy it, but then ask us to but it because she didn't have the money. She also stated that she was the only one calling Fecex about her order when we also had several calls to Fedex about her order as well. Mrs. ****** is financed and with that we only get paid when the job is done and we provide info to ********* telling them the job is done. Mrs. ******'s job was completed on March 3. She has not mentioned any service related issues to myself or any of my staff. Her only complaints to me today were lack of communication and her refund which she was provided as soon as I was made aware. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/03/18) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Unfortunately, the owner of this company is being misled by his employees, as his description of what happened is not accurate. 1. When Antonio initially came to my house, he shared multiple flooring options including carpet and LVP. I considered them but was up front that we actually were interested in a cork flooring product. He assured me that even though they didn't often work with cork, they were 100% able to install it. No less than three times, he told me not to go with another company to install, that instead if I end up finding a product I like, I can purchase and Premier Flooring can do the install. He said this was common practice. This is the first example of miscommunication within the company, if the owner is claiming they don't do this. 2. On the phone with Eric, he sold me on the financed option. I absolutely had/have the money to pay in full for this project, but he explained that this was a great option. I decided it would be nice to finance the project and put money into other renovation projects without that option. It's none of my business whether or not the company gets paid when my account with ********* is set up, but it doesn't change the fact that as soon as I created the account and hit "go" on the project, communication completely dropped off the radar. 3. The owner of this company is confused about the order of operations. I have a paper-trail for all of this, so he might want to trust me instead of his employees who are clearly just trying to cover up their mistakes. I originally sent over three cork flooring options to Antonio who told me they wouldn't get here as fast as *his* selection which was twice the cost but supposedly better quality. It was from a company that doesn't specialize in cork but whom they worked with before for other projects. I emphasized that my priority was speed of install, so if this product truly was ready to go, I was happy to purchase it. Over two months later, the flooring company was still unresponsive about whether it was shipped or not. Every time I called, Premier Flooring said the same thing, "we'll call them next week and let you know. They just said it would be shipping next week." This went on and on, and ultimately I asked if it was possible to cancel the order, choose a new cork product, and continue on. They said yes, I gave the go ahead, and called back the following week only to find out it hadn't been cancelled yet. I asked them to finalize that process and then called back a few days later to find out that it *still* had not been canceled. At that point, on February 18th, I called and told them that if they couldn't actually cancel the product by end of business day and reorder a new product that was actually in stock, I would like to cancel my entire order with Premier Flooring. Eric insisted that cork is never in stock anywhere, but within ten minutes of calling a few online companies including ***********, **********, and *******************, I found that all three of them had cork product in stock and ready to ship within the week guaranteed. Eric acted surprised, but agreed. I told him the ONLY way I wanted to do this was if the original product was actually cancelled and refunded and if he would adjust the difference within the ********* account to reflect the huge cost difference between products. He said that normally they charge an ordering fee of 10%, but since I was able to provide a link to a 10% off discount from *******************, that would negate the fee. I have already shared documents with the cost of the original product and the cost of the replacement product. I didn't just walk into the storefront yesterday arbitrarily demanding a number. I calmly showed the owner the price difference, along with a series of texts that Eric sent promising he would refund me "tonight." In that thread, he could read that I called and checked in via text twice about the refund, only to have my calls to him and texts completely ignored. In the storefront yesterday, the owner and office assistant insisted that actually the original product was non-refundable and non-returnable. That's none of my business- the company told me multiple times the product could and *was* returned. That was an outright lie. They are also misrepresenting the FedEx issue. The office assistant Patti emailed me saying it was delayed due to inclement weather. Since there was no bad weather between where it was shipping from and Baltimore, I decided to call FedEx and speak with a human instead of the automated response. When I did, they told me they had made attempts to deliver between Monday and Wednesday and that at this point, it was up to the company to call and organize a new delivery date or come to the storage facility and pick up. I communicated this info with Patti at Premier Flooring and she said "wow, you got ahold of a person? I tried but was never able to talk to anyone!" So clearly the issue here is that I was doing the legwork all along. They did the bare minimum in terms of advocating for their customer and treated me like an inconvenience as soon as the ********* account was set up. 4. The people who came to install were wonderful and did fantastic work. But the company never called to check in on our satisfaction. They avoided it, knowing they owed me over $1k. I made multiple attempts to check in on my refund between the time of install and this BBB report, and finally filed it yesterday morning. Then I went into Premier Flooring with all of the above information and requested the refund in person. They told me that until they got refunded from the first cork company, they wouldn't be able to refund *me.* They actually told me to file a complaint with *********. I told them this was absurd and I wasn't wasting my time, and that this was their mistake to own up to. At that point, they agreed to refund my ********* Account and gave me a paper with the amount refunded for me to sign. I told them I was not going to sign until the money was actually in the account, and that I'll gladly come back in when that happens. I called ********* in their office and they said it could be 24-48 hours. At the point the money shows as pending and then processed, I will absolutely sign their document. It would be naive of me to provide a signature before. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/03/21) */ Mrs. ******, We received, via email, your signed copy of the refund that you requested. You did in fact come into my showroom demanding a refund, and you stated how much you wanted back. We were working on providing you with that refund for the requested amount before you provided any documentation. We can do this all day, but I am not going to entertain this back and forth on the BBB website. I don't know what else we can do for you. If there is something else you are looking for or trying to achieve here, please let me know. You can email me just like you did yesterday, using my personal email address. As I already stated, you came into my showroom and left out a lot of information that painted a completely different picture. You have done the same here on the BBB website. Everyone in every industry is having problems getting product for various reasons. This all began when Covid hit forcing businesses to shut down. Things have never been the same. I apologize for the delays, and our shortcomings, and I honestly do not know what to do for you at this time. If there is something you want us to do other than what we have already done, please let me know.

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