Is Your Carpet Cleaning Provider Ripping You Off?

Carpets have been the floor cover of choice for most London households. In the past people were cleaning their carpets themselves and there were only a few companies which specialized in this activity. However in recent years the situation have immensely changed as more and more people decided to
open a cleaning company.
The niche is now densely packed with all sorts of companies but the service they are providing is not the same. The severe competition caused profit margins to decline and now some managers try to cut corners with their service or use questionable marketing strategies. So how do we escape these traps when hiring carpet cleaners and do we have any other alternatives?

So What Are The Tricks That These Companies Use to cheat you?

As you may know London has been attracting lots of emigrants many of which don't have work permit but they still need money to survive. Some managers of carpet cleaning companies decided to use this opportunity and hire these people for pennies. Usually illegal workers have no idea what they are doing, as they have never been trained properly to execute carpet cleaning procedures. Often these people are barely speaking english and communicating with them is nightmare. Naturally the effect is "flawed service" or even damaged carpets and rugs. In this case low prices mean , low quality and I guarantee that you would be happier paying a little bit more for a premium service.

Beware of Hidden Fees

Another nasty trick that some cleaning providers use is charging you hidden fees for things that they did not mentioned initially. There are cases of charging 5-6 pounds for every stair or for every little stain they removed or spot they treated with scotchguard. This is how the "affordable prices" turned in to something else. What I hate about this strategy is that these companies usually offer significantly lower prices to lure you in and then surprise you with the bill at the end. If it ever happened to you spread the name of the company trough all info channels that you can and signal the authorities for bad business practices. Remember what they say "I'm not rich enough to afford cheap things". If you are going to compare prices, take a look at the larger and older brands that won't pursue such a cheap strategies.

Marketing Tricks

Such tricks are used in all businesses around the world, sometimes they are based around a quality product that comes with all kinds of useless extras costing a fortune. These businesses just try to extract the maximum of their product and this is completely legitimate, however be skeptical about anything "free" they offer.  The same goes for carpet cleaning firms that operate in London, the so called "free estimate" is just a way to lure the clients to call them. Real estimate is performed before the carpet cleaning treatments  as soon as the cleaners set foot in to your home. Then and only then they can accurately judge your current situation with all unique details linked to it. These estimates performed over the phone are not accurate at all, for me this service is empty of value for the client.


To protect yourself from such abuse, you would have to make a little research and find a carpet cleaning provider that looks solid or  a certain company that is recommended to you. Check out if those providers are certified by the National Carpet Cleaners Association (NCCA). Most companies directly advertise themselves as certified by NCCA if this is not the case just move to the next one. When searching for a carpet cleaning provider just write "carpet cleaning *district area* " so the results show only companies providing carpet cleaning services in your location. Ranking high for these words does not always mean they offer solid service, so look at the list and see if you recognize any names.

If something looks too good to be true stay away, you could be stepping in to a trap.