Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Brampton Hardwood Floors-- The Floor Hell


Businesses that are rude and offer poor customer service will not survive. Here is what happened to us

My wife went shopping for hardwood at Brampton Hardwood Floors, Brampton, ON and finding the right colour match at a good price, decided to buy. She was interacting with John, a salesman/ installer and pointed to the Maple Traditional variety and ordered 24 boxes. The invoice was drawn up by Vandana and the payment was made. Further negotiations were done to tie up the installation through John's team of installers. The installers showed up at our home on the pre determined day with the 24 boxes all labelled Maple Mill run. For those un initiated to floorings, the Mill Run variety is of a low grade and the boxes contained short pieces of the hardwood ( longer pieces provide a better optical value). The store had sent us the Mill Run variety whereas we had ordered the Traditional variety. When my wife questioned the installer team we were directed to speak to the Store. We spoke with Vandana who was aggressive and rude and literally hung up on us. That left us no choice but to make several 25 km trips to the store. At the store my wife was informed by Vandana that the Traditional & Mill Run categories were one and the same even though the samples on the walls were labelled separately for both varieties. Stepping away from Vanadana my wife spoke to a sales associate who confirmed that the Traditional & Mill Run were separate categories. She was just discussing these aspects with the sales associate when Vandana walked up and "told" the Sales associate that " there was no difference between the Traditional and Mill Run categories". The sales associate meekly withdrew. My wife then met the Store manager who initially tried to assist but when Vanadana caught sight of this she pulled the store manager to a corner and "updated" him the way she had "updated" the sales associate. My wife was then informed that if she wished to return the hardwood , she would have to pay 25% as re-stocking fees. The store manager who till then had been helpful , now seemed to have undergone a transformation and spoke very curtly and seemed to follow the "company line"

The bottom line
1. Brampton hardwoods was paid $ 2011 for 24 boxes of Maple Traditional Hard wood
2. We got 24 boxes of Maple Mill Run Hardwood
3. The return policy required us to pay 25 % as re-stocking costs i.e. $ 502
4. We ended up paying the re-stocking costs , being subjected to rude behaviour on part of Vandana and losing the day dealing with what was a simple mistake made by Brampton Hardwood which could have been rectified by the Store mgmt accepting their mistake and switching us to the Traditional category
5. Our forays into the market place to shop at other stores after this episode revealed that there had been others who had felt cheated in doing business with Brampton hardwood
6. Our message to Brampton Hardwood Floors: We had nothing against you and infact we brought our business to you & for that we recieved what I have narated above. You have not only lost a customer but other potential customers who are our friends and family. You should pause to consider this...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did anyone tried to contact you guys afterwards. Infact i was planning to buy HW worth 6K from them in a day or so and was trying to find people reviews and came across your blog.

Where did you got your HW finally and how was your experience?

We have been attracted to buy from BH just because of the lower costs.

Neeraj Tandon said...

No one has contacted us from BH till date . They were pretty rude and un willing to listen-- awfull customer services!!!

we eventually bought from Direct Buy and got an extermly good installer who did an excellent job.

Good luck with your HW purchase/ install

Anonymous said...

@ Neeraj. Me & my wife had a similar experience. No issues about the product, but the behaviour of the staff was very rude. I run my own high-end store and I believe that, one should treat people in a right manner. Your comments about the Brampton Hardwood Floors just confirmed that it was not only me who had a staff & most likely the owner extended a very bad customer service. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, you are not alone in being scammed by Brampton Hardwood. There are others online. Please check out this thread on Redflagdeals. http://forums.redflagdeals.com/brampton-hardwood-reviews-1190739/ The original thread was deleted when Brampton Hardwood threatened to sue. RFD members felt strongly about this and continued to get the story out. Apparently the original victim finally came to some settlement with Brampton Hardwood. They also threatened to sue him to stop his comments rather than to address his concerns.

Did you pay by credit card? If so, you could possible do a chargeback as the items purchased did not match the items received.

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Anonymous said...

We purchased hardwood from Brampton Hardwood last year and were happy with the service we received. We need to purchase more of the hardwood last month, so called the store & spoke to Vandana. We were very surprised to hear the price had gone up by $1 a square foot. Vandana said because we are repeat customers she would give us a 50 cent discount. When we weren't happy with the price, she became very rude, yelled at me and hung up the phone! I called around and found much better prices, service and superior quality products at AA Flooring & More, so Brampton Hardwood, you've lost another customer due to very poor customer service!

Anonymous said...

FAR too many people simply use price as their sole criterion when shopping for a floor.

You get what you pay for people. You want a quality Canadian product made by a reputable company with a history of quality? Or do you want something cheap?

You can't have both.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. We shopped around and found a place on Evans Avenue called AA Floors. The sales staff were frank, we paid about $5.60 per sq. ft. for a Preverco floor (premium Quebec brand) with a scraped finish and it is simply amazing.

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