We booked a "Paint Your First Graffiti" session in Berlin for June 2026 and were invoiced €189. I…read morewired $228.63 USD on April 14, 2026, which corresponded to the invoiced amount at the exchange rate provided. My bank confirmed that no outgoing wire fees were deducted.
After the transfer, I was told the amount received was €5 short, so I sent an additional $10 USD (approximately €8.30 EUR). Despite this additional payment -- which actually exceeded the claimed shortage -- I then received another email stating that under "German law" the owner, Sylvain, had to receive the exact amount personally and that I was still short an additional €1.70 EUR.
At that point, I no longer felt comfortable proceeding with the booking and requested a refund, especially since no services had been rendered and the event was still weeks away. The funds were not returned.
What was most frustrating was not the small amount allegedly missing, but the handling of the situation: repeated demands for additional money despite overpayment, inflexible communication, and refusal to refund funds for a service that never took place.
The entire payment process became unnecessarily stressful and adversarial. Refusing to return funds for a service that was never provided left an extremely negative impression.