Now that it's been almost a week, I think I can discuss the carpet fiasco in a calm way. You may remember my stating that we had picked out carpet from a large DIY store that starts with an "L". (This is now officially known as The Store That Shall Remain Nameless!!)
We had decided that we would go to TSTSRN to get the carpet officially ordered and paid for on Monday evening. During the day, I talked to Jerome - my man in the carpet dept - and he said that he would be leaving at 5, but that all our paperwork would be ready to go. All we would have to do would be pick it up from the other carpet guy and take it to the front for check out.
We had planned all along to stop at Giant Eagle and buy gift cards for the carpet purchase so that we would get the fuel perks. ($4000 is a lot of free gas!) Well, we started thinking about it over the weekend, and Hubs suggested that perhaps if we bought the carpet on an installment plan, we could pay each month with gift cards and thus spread the benefit out. We should have known that would be too good to be true.
Anyway, it was nearly 8 pm by the time we got to the store. As I was pushing my cart up to the desk in the carpet department, the only man there, turned and walked away, taking his vest off as he walked. I thought this was a bad sign, but I was prepared to be pleasantly surprised by his return. We waited. He didn't come back. Another employee who is not a salesman, came up to the counter to use the phone and the computer. He asked if we needed help. We said yes. He got on the PA and paged for a carpet person to come to the department. Someone called him back and evidently told him that there were no more carpet people there for the evening. I happened to see a contract with my name on it laying on the counter, so I picked that up thinking it was probably what we needed to check out.
We went up to the customer service counter. First I explained that I wanted to open a charge account to take advantage of the 18 mos no interest offer they had going. Ok - we did that. It took awhile, but we got it done. Then I handed her my carpet order. Oops - it's not in the system she said. I explained that Jerome had told me it would be all ready go to. Well, it's not - she said again. Ok - now what? Well, that's when things got a little chaotic. Almost an hour later, after the clerk from the shutter/blinds/wallpaper dept helped out, and a manager helped out, they finally had the order ready to process. By then we were totally pissed at the incompetence of the store. We had the girl put the bill on the new charge card. Then I tried to pay on the account - with gift cards - nope, sorry, we can't use gift cards to pay on a charge. WHAT? I just bought $400 in gift cards to pay on this bill. Sorry... can't do it. By then we were done - we'd had it - it was the last straw. We told them we were going to cancel the whole order and take our business elsewhere. Another clerk came up and explained that they could use the $400 in gift cards to pay towards the bill first and then put the balance on the charge card. But...we'd never be able to use gift cards to pay on it. Nope - we're done! Cancel the order.
Now I'm not usually a person to do something like this, but we've had so many negative experiences with TSTSRN that we just finally reached out limit. There are a few people at the store who try to do the right thing, but the stores just aren't run right from the top. The attitude about customer service SUCKS.
So, we walked out of the store without ordering our carpet!!
Today, we went to a different store. Levi's 4 Floors. Previously, we thought that TSTSRN was the only store that carried Stainmaster carpet. Didn't you get that impression from their ads? Well, let me tell you, that's not the case. Levi's 4 Floors is an official Stainmaster Dealer. So, we went there today... looked at lots of carpet samples. We made an appt with the salesman to come out on Thursday afternoon to measure the house and look at some samples IN the space (what a concept - we get more than little 4" squares to look at!) So, we are now on a new carpet adventure. This whole process may delay finishing the remodel a bit, but that's ok - we're not in THAT big of a hurry.
Stay turned!!!
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