Avoid Aqualux at all cost!!! I have never encountered a worse customer service experience than my interactions with Richard. I called Aqualux to treat a small pet stain on our 10' x 14' Restoration Hardware viscose rug. Richard came over for the initial assessment. He identified the type of rug and quoted me $300 to treat the one stain. I thought this was extremely overpriced but Richard explained that they have to treat the entire rug, which is why the price is so high. Ultimately, I decided to give Aqualux a shot. Richard and another guy cleaned the rug. After the rug was immediately cleaned, I could no longer see the stain. However, as the rug dried, the stain reappeared but this time, 4 to 5 times larger than its original size! What was even worse is that I found four NEW stains elsewhere on the rug. I took pictures of the original and new stains and sent to Richard. He told me he had no idea why the original stain got bigger and why new stains appeared. First of all, how could someone who is a professional carpet cleaner have no explanation for what happened? He told me that this has never happened to him before, which is hard to believe. Also at this point, he started to blame the results on the fact that we have a viscose rug. He told me that I should never buy a viscose rug again and that I should have just thrown out the rug after my neighbor's dog had an accident on it. What kind of an attitude is this? Rather than make a customer feel bad about the situation, he should have taken ownership of what he had done (which was to have made our rug in a worse condition than before) and focus on fixing the problem.
Richard was willing to come back out and retreat the stains. At this point, he also told me I could have my money back. However, since he made our rug worse after treating it, I wanted him to fix the problem and so did not want my money back. Before coming back out when I spoke to Richard on the phone, he assured me that they can remove the new stains. Unfortunately, his attitude completed changed the day he came back out. As he was treating the stains, he told me again how I should never buy another viscose rug again and that viscose rugs should be illegal because they're so hard to clean. Well, he knew it was a viscose rug from the very beginning so if he didn't have the confidence that he could successfully treat the stain, then he should've been honest with me in the first place. While he was re-cleaning the rug, I asked him again how the new stains could have appeared. When we spoke on the phone, Richard told he didn't know because he would need to see the new stains in person. So naturally, I asked him again since now he was able to see the new stains in person. He immediately got so frustrated and started to yell at me and accuse me of asking the same questions over and over again. I did not ask the same questions over and over again; rather, I asked him in person about the new stains since he told me he would need to see them in person first before giving me an answer. Then I told Richard I didn't appreciate the way he was talking to me at which point, he yelled at me, "I am done with you!" He then told his colleague to turn off the machine and they stormed out mid-job. I tried calling Richard several times afterwards but he refused to answer since he recognized my number.
What Richard did was completely unacceptable. Not only did he fail to remove the original, small stain, but also he somehow left FOUR NEW large, yellow stains on our rug (his second trip did not help and in fact made all the stains bigger again!). He completely ruined our very expensive RH rug. Also, I am 5 and 1/2 months pregnant and the fact that Richard yelled at me and stormed out on me in the middle of their cleaning is repugnant.
After the incident, I went to Aqualux's website to try to find other numbers that I can call so I can report Richard to a supervisor/manager. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful. It seems like the company is owned by Richard and there is no other person above him. When I was on the website, however, I found a page for Blogs. On May 27, 2019 (after Richard cleaned our rug the first time), someone from the company wrote a blog about how one should never buy viscose. The blog also had a picture of our rug with the stain on it! Again, if Richard despised viscose as much as he says he does and didn't think the stain was treatable, then why did he agree to clean my rug and take my $300? SUCH A SCAM.
Like other reviews on this page, Richard also told me they do not accept credit cards. I paid in cash and never got a receipt (despite Richard promising me he would send me a receipt). The least Aqualux can do is to give me my money back for the damage they've caused. read more