How to avoid gimmicks & scams

 
You’ve heard it before. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

In the world of flooring, we’ve seen a lot of deals come and go. Generally, the company offers an unbeatable price for a ton of carpeting. It makes its money back in other ways, hiding behind a base price that suddenly expands at payment time.

Here’s a look at what’s behind some of these “great price!” deals.

We’ll give you 1,000/s.f. for ($$X)!

This deal charges what looks like a great price per square foot for basic level carpeting. The problem is, they do the measuring. We’ve literally looked at bids from these sellers, gone out and measured the exact same rooms and found big discrepancies in their square footage versus ours. In one case, we beat a huge company on its “sale” price by over $500. Just because the actual square footage was so much lower. You’ll also often see up-charges for labor costs which don’t appear until the final bill. And you might find other costs like carpeting a stair for $8 per riser (reputable companies charge about $1).

Buy one room, get another free!

This company might offer what looks like a great deal on entry-level, poor quality carpeting that will be rippling in a year or two. Then during installation they’ll add a high quality pad to drive the price up beyond the quote you agreed to. If you argue, they’ll nicely offer to pull it up and leave you with a carpetless room.

Amazing flooring deal – today only or forever hold your peace!

This tactic involves high-pressure salespeople who come out to your house with a sample of perhaps three different carpets to choose from. They offer a great price, but you have to sign right then or it goes away. If you don’t read the fine print carefully before you sign, you’ll find there “may” be additional charges. When it’s time to pull out your credit card, you’ll see they’ve nickeled and dime you to death.

Buy online, cut out the middleman!

Have you ever taken a UPS freight delivery for a 500 pound roll of carpeting? If you’re going to self-install, the logistics become a problem. Two people cannot possibly muscle that monster of a roll inside.

And what if it’s the wrong color or damaged? You’re on the hook for sending it back. It’s not like Zappos where they’ll pay return postage. We’ve seen a number of people burned this way, who later come to us.

Remember, it really pays to shop around. If you have a bid from another carpeting, hardwood or tile company, go ahead and bring it to us. Most likely we can beat it!