Business ProfileforGulf Coast Floors and Home Decor

I am a local resident who is trying to purchase flooring to repair my hurricane damaged home. I was referred to Gulf Coast Floors by my contractor and was going to use them to make the recovery process as smooth as possible.

Our process was unfortunately proved to be very difficult due to the unorganized and unprofessional nature of our sales person. We made the choice on the exact floors we wanted in in October of 2020. At that time, we hadn't started our repairs yet as we were still waiting on insurance money to come in, so we were not quite ready for the floors. However, because we knew the product we chose was very popular, we offered to go ahead and order and pay for the product at that time (Oct. 2020) so that we wouldn't miss out on product availability and to avoid price increases because of the ever-changing materials market. She ensured us that everything was fine for now and that the stock was good and we didn't need to order yet. She also informed me that their warehouse was damaged and they didn't have room to keep a lot of stock - so I offered again to go ahead and buy the product and store it myself if I needed to. She discouraged that at the time and said it would be fine to wait.

A month passed *** in November of 2020, I notified my sales person that we would not be starting on our repairs until after the first of the year in January of 2021 due to our contractor's schedule. I offered AGAIN to go ahead and purchase the floors early so we would make sure they would be available. She ensured me that the product stock was fine and there was no need to purchase early.

A month later in December of 2020, I checked in with my sales person again asking to now go ahead and order the floors. I said "I have insurance money ready to go to purchase the product." I sent this in a text as this is how we had communicated up until this point. She never answered my text and I followed up with several phone calls and voicemails - with no call returned.

I let the holidays go by and about a month after that, I decided to check back in with our sales person. I was finally able to connect with her and she informed me that there was a mistake on our first price estimate. She had left off the entire living room on the estimate. She apologized and I understood, it's crazy times and mistakes happen. No big deal. SHE offered to do a CASH deal to save us on the tax money. I said I was open to that and if she could get me a final price, that would be great. She said she would talk to her boss (the owner) and get back to me on a final price. However, she never called me back.

I waited longer thinking that we still had some time as she promised me that she would let me know if there were going to be any price increases or if the stock was getting low. Now a couple of more months go by and its June of 2021. We are definitely needing to order our floors ASAP as we are a good ways into our repairs. I try calling our sales person again and, again having trouble getting in touch with her after leaving voicemails. I end up getting my contractor to call her for me and she calls me back right away after speaking to him.

When I get her on the phone to get the floors order, and get my final price with the cash deal she offered me, she said "I don't remember that." She had no recollection of that conversation and said she had to go back to the drawing board. At this point, I'm also informed that there have been TWO price increases since we first spoke about the product. So while I've been trying to order the product for several months, there have now been two price increases and it's gone up by several thousand dollars.

She decided to honor her cash deal offer and called me back and said we had to order the product in the next 5 days before there was another price increase. I thought about it over the weekend and called her the next Monday to place the order. I thought everything was handled but then she called me back on the last day before the price increase to see if I wanted to order the floors and I said yes, I thought we did that Monday. She then replys and tells me that I was supposed to have "paid in full" by that day, yet she never communicated that to me. I was told we needed to "order the product" not "pay in full" by that day. If I would have known that, I would have paid for them right away. I was out of town because it was a Holiday Weekend so I was unable to just drop by and give them a check. When I started to state my case that I didn't know that and she didn't tell me that, she did not want to hear that and proceeded to tell me I needed to take my business elsewhere and then hung up on me.

I felt very much like she was looking for any reason not to do business with me because she offered me the cash deal which would have cut into her commission on the sale. I feel that they regretted offering that and wanted to look for a way out. I also feel that it's sketchy to be doing "cash deals" and having to pay in full before ever even seeing the product, when the reason I'm getting the cash deal in the first place is because they made the mistake of leaving off the living room on the original estimate.

Either way, this was a horrible experience in the middle of hurricane damage repairs that we are all dealing with. It really felt like I was getting kicked while I was down. This business not only wasted my time, but also my money because now the product I was trying to order for months is increased significantly. Not a good way to do business.

This consumer has not purchased flooring from Gulf Coast Floors. As stated above the consumer did have an interaction with one of our sales people inquiring on the purchase of a floor. Unfortunately due to the multiple hurricanes in our area both the consumer and Gulf Coast Floors were unable to house the merchandise for a long period of time. This can be proven in documentation via text messages from the consumer and sales person. Once a contract had been formally written the consumer was given a specific period of time before a price increase was to take effect to come in and purchase flooring. She agreed via text 7 days prior to increase and agreed to come in and purchase flooring material only. When this was not done in the required time frame, our sales person reached out to the consumer to find out what happened. The consumer was very unprofessional in her language. Since this was completely unacceptable, Gulf Coast Floors chose not to initiate any further interaction with this consumer. We had not even sold the consumer any merchandise and we were already having issues. We recommended the consumer purchase her flooring at a different store. Gulf Coast Floors works extremely hard on our customer service and we are known for our great sales staff and installers. I am sorry this consumer did not feel she had a good experience. During this unprecedented time in Lake Charles stress levels are extremely high. We wish this consumer the best and hope she is able to find what she is looking for.