Lumber Liquidators Consumer Reviews - Page 5

HARRAHAN, LOUISIANA -- I couldn't have asked for a better person to deal with when I purchased my Bamboo Flooring for my house. Matt, is The Man!! If you're dealing with Lumber Liquidators in Harahan, Louisiana, he will work with you and get you the best deal possible... and if there's a Problem, he will take care of it.

I worked at Lumber Liquidators for 14 months and found out several things.

1.) Do not buy Bellawood as there are many milling issues.

2.) Any Virginia Millworks flooring is actually very good quality and affordable.

3.) SCHON engineered flooring is a decent value. Decent quality, good prices.

4.) Laminates- stay away from 6mm flooring not because of LL but because it is just too thin. St. James flooring still amazes me with quality and price.

5.) NEVER buy odd-lots you will never be happy(that also goes for anywhere).

6.) CHOOSE YOU'RE INSTALLER WISELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 99 Percent of the issues I had at my store were installation issues and pretty much the rest were damaged from forklift or milling issues with Bellawood. Choose an installer with a warranty and check with references.

7.) The top 3 issues with a bad floor are MOISTURE(have the installer check the readings and put the proper moisture protection down- needs to be sold from LL for the warranty). Installers failing to leave an expansion gaps(the floor needs 1/4" to 3/8" gap between it and the wall, which you can cover up with baseboard or quarter round). And scratching. DO NOT BUY A SOFT WOOD IF YOU ARE ROUGH ON THE FLOOR. If you are particularly rough on flooring go with their ST. James laminate. It holds up extremely well.\

8.) They had a huge changeover in 2010 that caused thousands of customer complaints but should be over by now and safe to buy.

9.) The average customer is very unreasonable. They have an installer blame LL so they believe it when generally it is the INSTALLER.

10.) They treat their employees like TOTAL HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. I will not go into detail but it is not important for customers unless you like to buy from places that treat their employees good.

11.) All in all I will buy flooring from them when needed as I tend to not hold grudges. Hard to beat their prices and quality on most things. Again steer clear of bellawood.

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA -- I went to the Raleigh NC store to buy in-stock flooring. I asked about the return/refund terms before the purchase. I was told by a female employee I could return the flooring as long as it was unopened. I was surprised about the lengthy multi-page receipt which included a full page of fine print though. I signed in several places on several sheets of paper for the purchase, took the flooring, and left the store. About a week later I needed to return the flooring. I was told that I would be charged a 20% restocking fee.

When I questioned the 20 % restocking fee, the manager, **, approached me and mocked me for not reading the fine print on one of the pages of the receipt document. I was very shocked at his outrageous behavior, but continued to question the fairness of the policy which had not been fully explained when I questioned the female employee who had completed my receipt the week before. I told the manager that she had not advised me about the restocking fee, but the manager insisted in a belligerent way that I was to blame for not listening.

At one point he leaned across the counter and threatened me. He kept his hands on the counter but his face was only about 10 inches away from me. He insisted I sign the return agreement but refused to sign it himself. When I asked him to sign it he placed an "X" on the signature line and threw it under the counter. One thing I don't need to find in a retail environment is an angry, obnoxious, belligerent employee behind the counter who threatens me by saying, "I know your address." This manager acted in a way that would make a customer question his psychological stability. I don't know yet if he actually refunded my purchase price as he refused to sign to acknowledge my return.

CHERRY HILL, NEW JERSEY -- I purchased $13,000 in flooring for my second home in another state. I also used Lumber Liquidators installers - $6,000+ estimate. The order was shipped in multiple deliveries because they couldn't get the order correct. The stair treads were never completely delivered correctly. The store manager ** refused to help us and we had to enlist the corporate customer care team. The installer thought he could complete the job in 2 days and because it is a second home we have to pay every time our caretaker opens and closes our home. He has been there 10 times and the project is not completed. We were still missing 2 stair treads.

I called the store and ** the manager told me he had 2 in inventory and because of all the problems would ship overnight for free. The package never arrived so we called on Wednesday for a tracking number and was told we would get a callback. My wife called 2x on Thursday for a number and never received a callback. I called the store later and they gave me a tracking number.

On Friday I called FedEx only to learn there was never a pickup. I called the store on Sat and was told ** would call me back. The installer called and talked to ** who said the treads were in the warehouse and I could pick them up. I called ** to confirm I could get them and ask why I was lied to about the treads being shipped. ** got angry, said some inappropriate things about bodily harm to me and removed the treads from their inventory system so I couldn't pick up.

The installer got fed up and bought 2 treads from another store and is scheduled to come back again to complete the job. My wife returned the unused flooring and glue to the store after it was approved by customer care. They charged a 20% stocking fee and were angry at my wife saying they would now miss their quota for the month and made here wait 1 hr before they would remove from her car.

When I called Customer Care to tell them about this latest issue their response was "I never lied to you". This has taken over 45 days, I have spent 10's of hours on the phone trying to fix, and incurred over $400 in fees to open my house for the installer and is still not complete. They clearly don't care about service regardless of how big your order is. If you do business with them manage your expectations accordingly.

I waited for years to have the money to buy wood flooring for my house. I feel completely stupid and duped. Lumber Liquidators sells poorly manufactured floors and does not stand behind its products. The floor began to split on the glue line within 6 months of installation. After months of rudely worded form letter rejections LL hired Inspect Solutions who could not find anything wrong in my home or environment and therefore concluded that the installers knew the floor was damaged and installed it anyway.

I hired an inspector, who stated that it is a manufacturing issue and it is not floor checks as the Inspect Solutions claimed but glue line splits. He showed me a research article by the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) to show what my floor is doing. LL will not even acknowledge the inspection or the NWFA article and continued a ridiculously flawed argument against the installers.

After filing with BBB, I was offered a store credit that on the face seems fair but when you consider that I don't have the money to pay 2500 dollars to pull up the floor and have it reinstalled with no guarantee that the new floor will be any better, it is meaningless. And if again, I happen to get a bad lot or poor quality floor, I can start the cycle again. BBB states that cannot compel anything beyond LL's limited warranty that states a store credit is the only remedy.

I thought I had asked all the right questions and wrongly thought that LL was a reputable company but the bottom line is that they are a big company that knows how to protect themselves so they can take the chance of selling substandard products because if it fails they don't have to accept responsibility of making it right. The floor is so bad, I cannot walk in stocking feet. And I have to live with the constant reminder of how naive I was because it will be a long time before I can afford to replace it.

I recommend buying wood flooring from a reputable retailer who will stand by the product and treat customers with respect. Read the warranty, a store credit is great if the product is something you can simply take back but a floor should not fail in 6 months and if it does, you want a company that will make it right and at a minimum treat you with respect.

For me, I will have to see if the store credit is something I can sell so I can start to save for a replacement or determine if there is an implied warranty that will apply in my state and seek a remedy through litigation... sigh, I am so sad.

ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS -- WOW what crooks. We bought 900 sq ft of this and in a total of 36 boxes. We started to install after installing 28 boxes of the same color we come to the finish of 9 boxes. TO MY SURPRISE THEY WERE ALL OPPOSITE COLOR I MEAN NIGHT AND DAY color and unfinished. I would only assume the truck loader would have half a brain and when loading does make sure I'm getting the same lot. Considering I bought at the same time wow no brainer.

To top it off I call customer care and they start asking me questions of how it was installed and what glue I used. Really!! Turn it on me. I ask them what does this have to do with the color of the wood? The reply was it is the general questions we ask so I ask for the manager name and the reply there all in a meeting. So in the end they have no wood in that color other than what I bought and now I'm fed and my customer is the victim. I thought to myself has LL been around for around week?

I'm I on an episode of the 3 stooges (DO WE CHEAT-EM AND HOW). P.S. I can't believe they tried to say I made the wood change color my favorite was when they put me on hold for 45 minutes and had to sit in the parking lot for seven hours.

In response to LL feedback at bottom- They lie they never fixed the problem. I DID and when they called I was bribed within store credit. I never told I them would shop there again. LL please don't right things that are not true and in which they told me I was to receive the $300 in store credit 3 day ago. I have still not been taken off.

Do yourself a favor, shop somewhere with some honesty and integrity they do not make good on their end believe me. When they transfer you someone named ** this person never called me and never sent the in-store credit. This problem could have been easily avoided and cost me over $500 and my men had to take a 2 day sit at home (no Pay) that helped their families. LL keep the lies coming. P.S. It's nothing to with the product it had to with the shop not taking the time to check the (lot) and giving a $2000 order the care it deserves. Smoke and mirrors.

STAY AWAY FROM LUMBER LIQUIDATORS. Bought 700 SQ Feet of Summer Retreat Teak Laminate Flooring. Here are the highlights of my complaints. GAPS were forming only after few weeks of installation. Had a professional with 20+ years of experience inspect the flooring and he concluded that the locking system in the flooring is very very weak and that might be causing the gap. Called LL to file a claim. The claim representative never answered any of my calls, voice mails or emails. The only way to get through to the claim representative was to call the 800 number and ask for the claim representative.

With the case not going anywhere after a few weeks, I had to threatened the claim representative with my intention to file a complaint to BBB, FTC and Attorney General to get the case moving. When I was finally able to get through, I was told immediately that they had determined that gaps were caused by installation error or humidity just by looking at the pictures. After me further question on how they determine that, they finally agree send an inspector to examine my floor. Hm... I wonder why they agreed to an inspection.

The inspection report was pretty bias. It was pretty obvious that the inspector are looking for any slight installation error and blame the gaps on that. In this case, the inspector said the gap was caused by no joint stagger and support it by including selective pictures. The inspector took a lot of pictures of the gaps and many of them do show joint stagger in it but was not included in the report and made no mention of it. The whole process took 2 months and that's after many many calls.

WARRANTY IS WORTHLESS. Only covers Manufacturing defects and you will only get STORE CREDIT back. So if your flooring is defective then you get store credit and chances are you will end up buying more defective flooring. Their warranty process is a sham. See above.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE. Had to return some product and was told that corporate will send out a check for the refund in 3-5 weeks. IT TOOK 7 WEEKS just to get my refund and that's after a few calls to their 800 number to push for the refund. If I had not called, I wonder if I would have still gotten my refund or god knows how long it would take. The only explanation that I got was that their Accounting department had technical difficulties.

I have read hundreds of COMPLAINTS on Lumber Liquidators and they have much commonalities in them. Very Bad Customer Service, Worthless Warranties, Quality of the product is not consistent (you might get quality flooring if you are lucky).

PENSACOLA, FLORIDA -- I bought the wood from the LL store in Pensacola FL. I picked the wood up and put it out for seven days as instructed. The installers (hired through LL) showed up and said the wood was bad (warped and cut to differing widths). They delivered new boxes and assured me that this wood was good. After 7 more days, the installers showed up and began the install. I told them three times which way I wanted the wood to run. They still started putting it down the wrong way. I told them to change it and one of them went off the handle and argued that I told him to do it that way. I said no I didn't and told them to do it the right way.

He got so mad that the other two guys had to take him home for the day. His home was over an hour's drive one way from my house. The other two returned and started putting down the wood. The wood they pulled up was thrown together in a box with glue all over it. It was ruined. The next day they returned with the hot head and put the rest of the floor down. They did a poor job. Some of the wood was cut wrong and was not covered by the quarter round. There are defects in the floor. One of the boxes suffered from the same problem as the first (warped and miss cut wood). The installers installed it anyway. You can see the bowed and miss cut wood in the floor.

I bought enough T-Molding to do all the doors and they failed to do three of them. They did however take the extra T-Molding with them when they left. The worst thing of all is the glue they got all over the floor. It will take months to clean it all off. I notified the regional installer manager that I wanted my T-Molding back and she assured me she would have it returned. Never heard from her again.

I also sent this message to the Lumber Liquidators Store Manager who assured me he would send the message on to his regional manager. I doubt if he ever did because I have not heard anything from them. I do not recommend Lumber Liquidators to anyone who cares about the quality of their floor!!

BURLINGAME -- Here is my experience: I arrived at Lumber Liquidators to pick up my hardwood. I went to pick up 19 boxes of flooring. Only 18 boxes are loaded. ** explains to me that one box is beat to hell and that I could either 1) Buy the smashed box at a discount or 2) Have a new box drop-shipped to my residence. Since I need the full 19 boxes I choose to have the box shipped to my house. So far sounds fair.

On a side note when I show up LL has absolutely no twine or rope to tie my SUV hatch closed so I can accommodate all of the long boxes. They tell me that I have to use the hard plastic "wrappings" to tie my hatch closed and that usually customers "shop up with a truck" to pick up the flooring. In my entire life I have not seen a hardware store, tile shop, lumber yard ever that could not give me a 10 cent piece of twine to secure the product.

Anyway, when I get home and unload the boxes I notice immediately that another of the boxes is beat to hell along the side with a huge rip in the box and splintered flooring coming out the hole. I immediately called back and talked to **. ** said he would tell ** (the "customer service" representative that we dealt with for the flooring) to order a second box to be shipped out to our house. He explained that when we receive the new box to simply bring in the damaged box for an exchange.

Well Friday comes and only one box arrives. It is pretty late in the day so I wait to call until Monday. On Monday I speak with ** and he tells me that there is nothing he can do. He explains that he shouldn't even provided me with the first replacement box and that everything is "as is". I explain to him that the damaged box was hidden when it was loaded and there was no way I could have inspected it before it left the store. Long story short is that LL took my money for useless wood. They are extremely rude in person and on the phone and have no interest in helping the customer. The manager, ** almost made my wife cry.

I understand that this is a liquidation out the door type store and their prices reflect it and that they can't be as flexible as a full retail store. However, they surely shouldn't be able to rip you off and they certainly don't have to be JERKS about it!!! Avoid this store at all cost.

LORTON, VIRGINIA -- I purchased (first quality “not seconds”/”odd lot”) engineered flooring on 4/14/2011. My credit card was charged in full on that same day and there was no indication that the product was out of stock. I came to learn that they did not have the product to ship yet, still charge the credit card and they fraudulently did not communicate that to me. I was never alerted when it was shipped to the store. It was only after yet another complaint that I found out 6 weeks after my purchase that it had finally shipped to the store. There was no statement or communication that it was not in stock or that they would not be shipping the product.

I checked my status on the website repeatedly and it read “Partially Processed.” I routinely complained and asked when I would receive shipment since they had already charged my credit card in full. Of course I could not cancel my order because they had already charged my card. Next, we picked up our order at the store and when we complained that the box looked like “odd lot” pieces, was not full nor looked like 30 square feet, we were told, “what do you expect this is not Home Depot.”

After loading the wood and driving 40 minutes back home, then unloading the wood, we opened the first box. Piece after piece was clearly marked by the manufacturer inspector as rejects. The manufacturer had marked a large “c” and long lines on each piece of wood noting the many defects. These included holes, large gashes, uneven coloring and mismatching grooves. I immediately called and demanded a refund. I was told this is normal and to open the second box, which of course had the same clearly marked inspection rejects. I called again and demanded a refund and advised them to pick up this wood immediately.

I am still arguing with a very highly trained Customer Service Staff who are scripted to change the subject and state that it is your fault and manufacturer rejects are what is to be expected. Customer Service provides no assistance in resolving the complaint. In fact, they lie and you end up wasting even more time as they try to blame you. I now realize I am not going to get anywhere with them. They are trained NOT to process your claim and delay the matter so that after 30 days and you prove you have defective products, they can charge you a 20% restock fee.

THE INVOICE YOU RECEIVE AT PICKUP LITERALLY ABSOLVES THEM FROM ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. I have wasted so much time since 4/14/2011 on this fraudulent company. They should not be allowed to do business as is documented by all the complaints on the web. I am going to the Attorney General next to demand they take action against this nationwide company who markets on the web, mails catalogs and fliers to your home and also employs salesman to call you.