Yes, with Stanley Steemer you too can be steaming mad about being ripped off!
My wife and I decided to move across town and before we put our house up for sale we decided to have the carpets steam cleaned. Whom better to do this, or as so we thought, than the name you see advertised on TV almost everyday – Stanley Steemer. Their advertisements claim that they’re the best in the business, most professional and that they get in and out fast. So we called and told them that we had a four bedroom house and the price we were quoted over the phone was $350. They said this included some special offer or something like that.
Prior to them even coming tour house to clean the rugs we received several telemarketing calls were they were trying to sell us extras. They wanted to know if we had furniture that needed to be steam cleaned and then treated with Teflon anti-stain treatment. I said no we were selling our house and moving and we just want to clean the house. The calls kept coming. Did we want the deadorizer sprayed on our rugs and furniture? No I said stating again that we were going to sell our house and we just wanted it cleaned so we could show it at open houses and such.
The calls again kept coming, but eventually the day came when the Stanley Steemer guys showed up to steam clean our carpets. Before they began they showed us their invoice which was $485. I told them that we had called Stanley Steemer to set an appointment for them to come out to our house and clean our carpets and that we agreed on the phone to a price of $350. He said that was impossible for the square footage and number of rooms that we had the price would be much higher. He said his price of $485 was even taking into account a 20% off discount that he didn’t have to give us.
I was not happy with this but my wife said we had an open house coming soon and we needed to have the carpets steam cleaned. So we agreed to the price but I was still very angry that they do this bump process with customers when they show up at your door – isn’t this unethical or even illegal business practices? Upon searching the Internet a little bit on Google there are thousands of complaints similar to this where customers were bumped and price between what they were quoted and what the actual charges by Stanley Steemer were when they actually showed up to perform the work.
So, anyway, they cleaned our carpets and when they were done they pointed out some spots to us that they couldn’t get out. One really got me mad because it wasn’t there before. In our living room there was a oily spot that they said they tried to treat several times and it just wasn’t coming out. That spot was not there before as I clearly would’ve seen it every day as it was directly in front of the TV. The only place that stain could’ve come from is from there carpet cleaning machines or something.
There really is no 10% discount. Instead they will bump up your quoted price by $100 or more when they show up!
Also, there were some brown spots by the back door they said they couldn’t get out. They didn’t look too bad but I’m sorry they should’ve been able get those out. Later after they left I was able to remove all those stains even the oily greasy spot that they left there when we borrowed a friend’s Rug Doctor Mighty Pro. The rug Dr. machine could have been blocked for the price we pay for Stanley Steamer to do our rugs and it would have done a far better job and not tried over charges were bumped us with a higher invoice than we were quoted over the phone.
I will never use Stanley Steamer again and whether you consider this a review or a complaint, I am recommending that everyone steer away from Stanley Steamer. From their harrassing telemarketing to their unethical and possibly even illegal business practices to their crappy service and low quality rug cleaning, I can’t possibly imagine why anyone would want to use them.
Stanley Steemer is terrible. They suck. They ruined my carpets, charged way too much money, refused to fix anything and tried to blame me for what they did. I will never use Stanley Steemer again – terrible company, shady and unethical business practices and basically a company you need to stay away from!
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Stanley Steemer charges too much and plays games with the bill when they are done. I do not recommend them. Use someone else.
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I worked for stanley steemer for over 8 years they are not a carpet cleaing service they are simply a sales company. Its always quantity over quality – you are nothing but a number. Next time you need carpet cleaning call a LOCAL small company, still make sure it is steam cleaning and that the techs as well as the firm is iicrc certified. As far as a rug doctor is concerned stay away from any type of houshold carpet cleaner as they cause more damage then good.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I also work for Stanley Steamer. The way the company works, the guys in the trucks have no communication with the guys that do sales. The sales are a national call center, that forward invoices to the trucks via internet. When we go out to a job, we have no clue what we’re getting into usually. The numbers most always come out different when we do our own invoices, because the sales guys want to make it as low as possible, cause once your in, your in. You fell for our crap scheme.
As far as the carpet goes, that oily looking spot was probably already there, you just couldn’t see it. The steam machine tends to bring out things that were in the pad of the carpet. you have 10 days to call in a re-do if anything new comes up.
Yes, we’re expensive, yes, we suck. We’re expensive because of all the extras we give out like redo’s, guarantees, driving costs, ect… We suck because they run crews for about 15 hours a day, and don’t pay us squat for it.
My day starts at 7am, and usually ends somewhere between 8pm and 10pm. We supposedly get a “commission” but it never works out that way.
I hate this place.
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Please someone stop those damn “crying ads” on television. It is the stupidiest ad I have ever seen. Stanley Steemer cannot be much of a company if that is the best they have to offer.
I will not consider using Stanley Steemer services if this continues.
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I WAS QUOTED A PRICE OF 100.00 TO DO L/R HALL/BEDROOM. 2 DOORS DOWN JUST HAD IT DONE AND THEY CHARGED HIM 99.99. THEY CAME IN AND MEASURED ME 93 MORE FT AND THE CONDOS ARE ALL THE SAME. AND INSTEAD OF 100.00 THEY CHARGED ME 121.95. GO FIGURE…… I CALLED AND TALKED TO THE MANGER ALICA AND SHE SAID JUST BECAUSE THEY QOUTE OVER THE PHONE THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. AND WOULD NOT GIVE US HER BOSSES NAME. I WILL NEVER USE THEM AGAIN NOR WILL I SAY ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT THEM. OH AND THEY MOVED MY FRIENDS FURNITURE BUT REFUSED TO MOVE MINE. NEVER AGAIN… THIS IS IN GULFBREEZE FLORIDA….PLEASE DON’T USE. I GUESS HIS MEASUEMENTS WERE OFF THAT DAY. THESE CONDOS ARE ALL THE SAME HERE. ONLY 14 IN THIS UNIT.
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I had a fairly good experience with the crew at Stanley Steemer. They came and did what they were supposed to do – steam clean my carpets. Their prices were steep, but other then that I was pleased by their services.
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Warning!! – This is most likely a response from an employee, franchise owner or manager of Stanley Steemer – Warning!!
Apparently not all Stanley Steemer franchises are created equal. I have dedicated myself as a life long Stanley Steemer customer due to them amazing me each and every time they enter my home. Our local Stanley Steemer is completely family owned and operated by such a genuinely caring family. Each person on their staff that I have come in contact with has been such a joy to work with. They have always been very informative and do their best to price out my cleanings over the phone to avoid any unexpected charges when cleaning time comes. From speaking to friends, family and neighbors it seems if our Stanley Steemer does cause any accidents in a home they will take complete responsibility to make the situation right. Only good things to say about this business.
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I am a General Manager for a Stanley Steemer franchise in California and after reading the comments posted wanted to say this:
We SSI(the corp & the franchise) can at times, like practically every other company in America can “suck” at times. Sometimes we “suck” too often too…I will be the first to admit that. First I feel I have to point out we have Corporate offices & franchises (most of which have been owned by the same people for decades!) I can’t speak for how corporate is doing things these days as far as pricing goes, here in our franchise we don’t measure square feet, the price we quote you over the phone, unless you add services, addn’l rooms, etc…is what you pay…that’s it.
I have and still will take a loss on a job, in order to do the job for the price I quoted the customer, even if it costs me twice that to do it. Our prices ARE higher than many, but not as high as some…we feel that that is returned to you through better service and accountability on jobs that may not go right the first time. We have sent and paid(at our expense) crews to go to the same home several times in efforts to satisfy our customers. Sometimes we certainly do fall short and we try and do everything we can(including replacing entire rooms of carpet) to rectify our mistake.
We(at this franchise) have begun retraining ALL of our crews to be BETTER CLEANERS, not better salesmen…we have to be able to provide the service BEFORE we can even attempt to sell it. Please know that we are not all the same, we work hard to bring you the best service we can and we are ALWAYS looking for ways to make our service better!
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BEWARE! Stanley Steemers hardwood services in Columbus,OHIO are downright fraudulent, they messed up the reapplication and i now have streaks running through my hardwood floor. The hardwood flooring manager Andy Sroufe came to my house and basically blamed the floor for his companies mistakes. Indeed the re-coat did not stick and caused hundreds of bubbled craters throughout the floor, But what about the streaks of hardened protruding lines going into my bathroom???? No way this was caused by contaminants. This was caused by a crew who went too fast and made mistakes, Andy of course had no response to that. Instead he hit me with a $1200 quote to redo my floors, yeah like i’m really going to give you a chance to screw me some more, idiot. I have since reported this to the BBB, the attorney generals office and 6 on your side plus i will make it my personal duty to write to every consumer complaint site I find. I’m also taking them to small claims court because someone needs to keep these people honest.
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