Unscrupulous Carpet Dealer
Pros: They carry some good quality carpeting products.
Cons: They made measuring mistakes, ordered too much carpet, poorly communicated with us, tried to steal carpet remnants and pads, and then tried to collect more money because of their mistakes.
The basics: We wanted to replace the carpet in our rental apartment and went to Georgetown Carpet in Glover Park because it was convenient.
Specifics: We went to Georgetown Carpet and met with Tim. He was rather "slick" like a used car salesman, but provided us with several samples to take home after collecting a $500 deposit.
We placed the order over the phone with Ben and set up an appointment for their carpet measurer to come to the house. The carpet guy measured the carpet in less than 15 minutes.
Ben called with the final price of about $5,000 and asked for a deposit of $3,000. We negotiated the second deposit down to $2,500 because we'd already put down $500. We set up an installation date.
Meanwhile, we stopped by the store to order linoleum for the vestibule area of the apartment. Tim had told us that we could buy a remnant, but Ben said it was not possible. Ben could not find the vestibule measurements so we had to come back to the store again. We asked Ben if the measurer had ordered too much carpet because it looked like the vestibule had been included in original measurement drawing. He said that the measurements were accurate. The only linoleum he said would work in the space (in the color we wanted) would cost $550 for a 4'x4' space. We were shocked at the high price and said no. We figured out another solution for the vestibule.
The first two installers showed up 2-1/2 hours early on a Friday and weren't very fluent in English. The installers noticed that not enough carpet had been bound for the areas where the carpet would sit a couple inches away from the railing and told me that the carpet would need to go back to be bound. They did not say how long it would take to do it. Ben called and asked us why the carpet was not installed. We told him that the measurer had not measured correctly.
Ben called over the weekend and the second installation date was set for Monday. The second installers were more experienced than the first. They rolled out and cut the carpet in front of the house and also sewed the binding there. Ben showed up unexpectedly to find out who made the mistake with the bound edges and we insisted that it was his measuring guy, not us.
It took two days to install the carpet. During the second day of installation, we saw the installer place two rolls of our carpet in the back of his truck. One was very large--approximately 8'x10' and the other looked the size of the vestibule--about 5'x5'.
When the installer was finishing up, we asked him about the carpet remnants and he handed us a piece of bound carpet about 2-1/2' x 5'. We asked him about the other pieces and he acted like he didn't know what we were talking about. We then asked him to open the back of his truck and, low and behold, there was the large remnant laying under four feet of other carpets. He took it out, measured it, and said it was about 8'x10'. He also offered to give us the matching pad. At $10 per square foot, it was approximately worth $800 that we didn't need! We never saw the other remnant but believe it was in his truck, as well.
We signed off on the job and took a photo of what we signed because they didn't have a copy. Thirty minutes later, Ben called and wanted an additional $400 for the extra labor.
Conclusions: Overall, our experience with Georgetown Carpet was negative. We believe they intentionally ordered too much carpet and made extra money by overcharging us for materials. Apparently this is a common scam. They also tried to steal the extra carpet to (perhaps) sell as remnants.
Georgetown Carpet did not provide us with any guarantee or warranty.
We are probably not the only customers to be scammed by Georgetown Carpet. Be very careful when buying with this sneaky company and question everything they do--especially when dealing with Ben. read more