Don’t Get Ripped Off By Carpet Cleaning Scams
We received a call, from a woman that just moved into a new apartment in Hawthorne, California. She was coming from out of state so she was having her furniture delivered on Friday. With everything that is going on (COVID-19), she thought it would be a good idea to have her carpets cleaned on Thursday. She did a quick google search for local carpet cleaners and found a company advertising “All Green Carpet cleaning $69 for three rooms” which, to her, sounded like an amazing deal. She had no trouble booking an appointment with the company and they showed up on Thursday, as scheduled. Everything seemed to be working out perfectly, so she thought.
When the carpet cleaner arrived, he immediately told her the price was going to be $350, rather than $69. He tried to justify the price increase because of the “wear and tear on the carpet.” None of this made sense to her. The entire apartment (including the carpets) had been cleaned already; she was only having it cleaned again to be extra cautious. She argued with the carpet cleaner until he finally agreed to do the job for $200. Although she felt taken advantage of and wanted to cancel the job, she knew she’d be hard-pressed to find someone else to clean the carpets before her furniture arrived the next day. She didn’t realize she’d been victim to a bait and switch scam.
Carpet Cleaning Scams with Rental Machines
When she thought things couldn’t get any worse; they did. The carpet cleaner informed her that he’d rented the machine from Home Depot, and it had malfunctioned halfway through the job. This was a problem for more than one reason. She understood that a portion of the carpets, would be damp from the cleaning. However, she didn’t realize the cleaner had saturated all of the carpet with chemicals, prior to using the machine. Now she was dealing with soggy carpet, soaked in chemicals and her furniture was still being delivered the next day. The next morning the movers came and her carpet was still soaked; her furniture was placed on wet carpet and her carpet was totally destroyed. We went that day and did what we could but the damage had already been done.
How these Scams Work
In the home service industry leads are everything. Karma Carpet Cleaning gets a lot of leads from Yelp because of all of our 5-star reviews. It has taken years and years to get to this point. When we started Karma Carpet Cleaning we were lucky to get 3-6 calls a month. When you hire a carpet cleaner you want to know you can trust them in your home, so most people will ask friends for recommendations or look at reviews online. Karma Carpet Cleaning has always come by our reviews honestly and we have built our clientele because of that. However, what a lot of other companies do is purchase leads from lead generation companies. Lead generation companies are successful because they understand and rely on digital marketing. Lead generators build business by creating eye-catching Google ads. When a customer clicks on these ads, the lead generating company then turns around and sells that lead to the highest bidder. These leads generally cost the businesses about $60 each, and if a service is offered at “3 rooms for $69.00” the profit would only be $9. Those cleaners will use sales tactics and aggressively up-sell additional treatments, in order to hike up the price.
How to Know That You Are Hiring the Right Company
When looking to hire a professional carpet cleaning company the name of the game is reviews, reviews, and reviews. Legitimate companies will have at least 100 Five-star reviews. Scam companies need to change there company name and website every few months to fly under the radar. We at Karma Carpet Cleaning have at over 200 Five-star reviews that span the last decade. You know when hiring a company like ours that you are getting a highly recommend and trusted company. When you answer an ad for an extremely low rate you never know who you’re going to get, and if or when they try to rip you off, you can’t leave a review and warn others.
When getting your carpet cleaned it is always better to go with a professional carpet cleaning company. It may seem like you are paying more for a professional carpet cleaner, but in the end, you will ultimately save money. If you would like to hire a professional carpet cleaning company in Los Angles, call Karma Carpet Cleaning (310) 853-3597 OR Go to KarmaCarpetcleaning.com
