Steer clear of Austin Specialty Cleaners.
Last fall, a part of our house flooded with the heavy rains. A rug got wet. I work out of state right now, so my father in law came over that day and gave my wife a hand by taking the rug to Austin Specialty Cleaners. When my wife called them later to discuss the cost of cleaning the rug, the price they quoted was too high for us. We told them "no thanks" on the cleaning, and said we'd just come pick it up. They said we owed them $65 for drying it, which they did to prevent any mold. We told them it would have been nice if they had told us about the charge before they incurred it, but they would not waive the fee. They did offer to my wife to deliver it if she paid the fee. My wife told them she'd call me to see if that was ok with me. We did decide to pay the fee and get the rug, but my wife never got around to calling them until this week. Was it a long delay before we called them? Yes, it sure was. Did anyone at Austin Specialty call us to tell us that they had a problem holding on to the rug? Nope.
Fast forward to this week. When my wife called today, she was told that since she never called them, they just assumed we did not want it and THREW THE RUG AWAY.
When she expressed how upset she was that they did that without even calling us to warn us they would be throwing the rug away, Carol (she and her husband K.C. own the company) never said "sorry", she just said that their receipt has a disclaimer that they're not responsible for item left there for more then 30 days. Really, they want me to think they regularly throw their customers items away without even calling? How hard is it to give us a call and say "please pick up your rug this week or we're throwing it in the dumpster"? In this instance, it seems like they just failed to call, threw it away, and now fall back on a policy I doubt they've ever actually employed.
I called Carol back. I told her that we really wished she would have called to tell us they were throwing the rug out. She trotted out the same excuse of the disclaimer. She also embarked on several other excuses, among them that the rug was thrown out because it was moldy, despite the fact that they had wanted to charge us $65 for drying the rug to prevent any mold. When I pointed that contradiction out, Carol then claimed the rug was moldy when we dropped it off, which it was not. When I told her that her story was now changing, Carol just hung up on me. When I called back a few minutes later to try and finish out conversation, no one would even pick up the phone. Is this junior high?
Bottom line - maybe they are good cleaning rugs, I'll never pay them a dime to find out. But they are terrible at saying "I am sorry", they are terrible at giving you a call before they take such drastic action as throwing your rug away, and they are terrible at customer service. I do not recommend them to anyone. read more