BBB ousts flooring firm with Tucson ties

But the Phoenix-based parent company of Express Flooring — the "happy home people" — has generated such a disturbing pattern of complaints that the Phoenix-area Better Business Bureau suspended its membership and has denied its reinstatement.

The bureau was concerned about the length of time the company takes to resolve complaints, its failure to work with the bureau to eliminate the underlying causes of complaints and failure to adhere to the bureau's established standards of advertising and selling.

Though based in Phoenix, Express Flooring has been doing business in Tucson since March 2005, and business has increased rapidly in both cities, said Henry Jaffe, operations manager for Express Home Services.

The complaints the company has received pale in comparison with the number of customers who have been happy with their results, he said.

In early June, the Phoenix bureau's board of directors will hear the company's second appeal for reinstatement. After the first appeal in December, the board decided the suspension should remain.

"It looks like they had resolved all the complaints, but we look at the pattern of complaints as well," said Felicia Overton, spokeswoman for the BBB of Central and Northern Arizona, which serves Phoenix.

The types of complaints the bureau received — from customer service to contract issues, sales practices, refunds, delivery and repair — indicated there was a larger problem, the Tucson BBB said.

One couple's story

Northwest Side residents Margaret and G.P. Carpenter use their tax refunds to make home improvements, Margaret Carpenter said.

In January 2006, she saw an Express Flooring commercial and decided to get an estimate even though she and her husband had not done their taxes yet, she said.

The sales representative had a tile she and her husband wanted, and according to Carpenter, he asked the couple to sign a paper to allow him to check their credit for a 12-month, no-interest payment plan.

Margaret Carpenter says she and her husband didn't know they were actually signing a contract. She called the company the next day, she said, to tell them she had decided not to go with them for the project.

In February 2006, the Carpenters received a bill from the financing company indicating work was scheduled for Feb. 27.

After much wrangling, the project fee was replaced on the bill with a restocking fee of $1,070, a quarter of the original cost. More back and forth ensued with Express Flooring and the finance company, and with interest on the restocking fee accumulating fast, the Carpenters settled the balance for $1,300 last month, Margaret Carpenter said.

"There was no way — no way — that those idiots were going to damage my credit," she said.

Jaffe said he has a hard time believing they didn't know they were signing a contract. He's never heard of that happening before, he said.

"The contract's a totally different document. They would have to sign two documents," he said.

Vail resident's complaint

Vail resident Margaret Ross says she got the runaround from the company after she signed a contract in January and handed over a $3,294 deposit.

She decided later that evening, after finding criticism of Express Flooring online, that she didn't want to go through with it. She sent a certified letter the following day to tell Express she was breaking the contract.

The law allows three business days for would-be clients to reach such decisions.

Ross said it took 42 days to get her money back. In the meantime, she said, she was told two different times that the money was on the way.

At one point, she was told the company waits 20 days to process refunds, but another time she was told refunds take 30 days, she said.

Jaffe, of Express Flooring, said the company received her cancellation letter two days after Ross signed the contract. Her deposit went into the bank the same day.

"They must have crossed each other," Jaffe said.

A refund was processed Feb. 23, he said — just over a month after the original contract was signed and canceled.

The company's refund policy for personal checks is 21 business days — "basically a month," he said. That's the longest period of time the company controller has seen before a check bounced or had a stop payment put on it.

Eventually, Ross complained to the Arizona Registrar of Contractors as well as the Arizona Attorney General's Office and the Federal Trade Commission, she said.

"The backbreaker of any company in the home trade is essentially the Registrar of Contractors, because they can remove their license," she said.

In good standing

Express Home Services remains in good standing with the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, said Brian Livingston, assistant director. The firm has four open complaints and 51 that have been resolved, settled or withdrawn.

It's hard to tell if that's a high number because it's all relative to the volume of business the company handles, he said. Jaffe would not disclose sales figures for his company but said the company handles thousands of jobs in a month.

Livingston would not comment on the nature of the complaints, but he pointed out that none of the closed complaints have resulted in disciplinary action by the registrar.

Consumers should look not only at the number of complaints but also at how they are settled, he said.

"If disciplinary action was taken on any of those complaints, then I would be concerned," he said.

A larger competitor that does business in the Phoenix area, Illinois-based Empire Today LLC, has 350 employees and remains a member in good standing with the BBB despite having 1,318 complaints in the last 36 months and 437 in the last year.

"For every unhappy customer you have, I can show you 200 extremely happy ones," Jaffe said. "It's impossible to keep 100 percent of the people happy 100 percent of the time."

On StarNet: Read the Star's business blog, "Clocking In," at azstarnet.com/business

By the numbers

Complaints to the Better Business Bureau about Express Home Services, which does business as Express Flooring. The BBB has suspended the company's membership and denied its reinstatement.

169

total complaints in the last 36 months

98

complaints in the last 12 months

23

complaints from Tucson customers since last June

8

complaints from Tucson since January

100 percent

resolved by Express Flooring