[Ming the Merciless]

I think they nickel and dimed you a couple/few hundred by:

1) selling you too much material
2) the carpet price was OK per square foot, but I think they over sold you (too many square feet)
3) they charged you too much for padding and sold you too much
4) they also charged too much for labor...that is not more than a 300-400$ job. even in california

between that and the poor seaming, do not use them again...

You might be better off having a better guy come in and re-do the seam and stretch it for a couple hours of labor than bothering wasting time on a lawsuit IMO...just never use them again and tell everyone how shitty they treated you. KArma is a bitch for them

I do get pretty good deals and I have an outstanding carpet guy......but I would look for a different installer. Do you guys have any 'Tom Duffy' stores there? I buy my pad from them....and I shop around for my carpet....I then have my carpet installer pick everything up , he charges about 5$ a yard for pad and carpet install which is about 55 cents per sq ft....