Customers in Lumber Liquidators settlement still waiting for their money

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Local residents are waiting on their share of a Lumber Liquidators settlement you may not have heard about.

Daphne Champion, of Rock Hill, said she bought Morning Star Strand Bamboo flooring from Lumber Liquidators. She showed Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke the floors are uneven, buckling and separating.

“I should not be experiencing this from the floor is only 4 1/2 years old,” she said. “This is an eyesore. This makes you very depressed. You don’t want to have company because you’re embarrassed.”

Customers sued Lumber Liquidators in what became a class action suit.

The plaintiffs say the bamboo flooring can’t “withstand typical ambient moisture variations causing the product to cup, shrink, delaminate, buckle, splinter, scratch, crack, warp, swell, gap and ultimately fail prematurely.” They claim the store knew about it, but didn’t say anything.

The company says it didn’t do anything wrong, but settled the lawsuit. It agreed to pay customers $14 million in cash and $14 million in store credit if they bought the flooring between January 1, 2012 and March 15, 2019.

The court signed off on the deal in late October.

According to one document, customers were supposed to get money within 60 days, which would have been the end of 2020.

Champion applied for the money and was wondering what was taking so long. “I feel used and neglected,” Champion said.

According to the settlement website Friday, checks should go out in July 2021.

Action 9 is asking what changed, if anything.

Lumber Liquidators previously had a legal settlement about flooring some claimed had high levels of the cancer-causing chemical formaldehyde. In that settlement, the company agreed to pay customers $22 million in cash and $14 million in store credit.

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Cox Media Group