A faithful, loyal customer has been lost for this business. After writing a 5 star review and a few…read moreyears of good service, this relationship is now tarnished. The service kind of slowly, steadily started to decline with the new owner, Danny. He was keeping up with demand at first but life happened. I do not know any personal details or anything that may have happened, if anything happened at all, but there were several times that the store should have been opened but they were closed. I would call, and get no answer or call back.
I let all of that go, fully understanding things happen. And Danny did recruit a friend/family member to help him in the business as he was away for several weeks. Below details where all bets were off.
I dropped off a leather briefcase where the top portion of the bag was starting to separate from the reminder of the bag, needing restitching, glue, etc. It was still in tack, but starting to tear/come apart. I described the issue went over the bag to see if anything else was a problem per usual, received a ticket with an estimated pick up window and left the bag.
It was trying to retrieve the bag that was the problem. I went a total of 4 times to pick up my bag, and there was always a problem. It was either not ready or could not be located. One person blamed the other stating, "...he was working on it.." I waited patiently as this was over the course of 2 months. It was estimated for pick up in 1 week. Showing up in person, led me to me leaving without my bag 4 times and with empty promises, making me do more work, like "...can you come back at 6pm?" I am here now and it should have been ready a month ago. Danny even promised me on the 3rd visit that, since he could not find my bag, that he would bring it to me, personally delivering to me since I was not too far away. He said he would text me around 5pm when he was on the way. I never received such text and he never came.
4th visit to retrieve my bag; they both were there (this is earlier this week by the way). Danny saw me, said hello as he was talking to another customer. I was friendly and polite. Mind you, I am not really upset at this point, a bit disappointed but still understanding. I just want my bag and in better condition than I brought it because that was the agreed upon arrangement. Danny took some kids out and quickly excited before servicing me but telling me that the other guy was there; not mentioning anything about the missed connection.
The other guy stepped from behind the back wall with all bag news. My bag was not only not finished, but it was broken. The interior rod inside the handle piece to make it steady/sturdy to carry was broken into 2 pieces. That is not how I dropped it off. He then proceeded to state that it is how he found it, insinuating that I had broken it. I was A PAULED (intentional misspelling). I stayed calm, rather trying to figure this out. I am looking at the wooden rod; it is broken with splinters, like one would take a tree branch and snap it, not an even break but more torn with wood splinters. It looked as it was intentionally done. And I had to wonder for a second, did I cause that? But came to the conclusion that was impossible because I carried the bag in by the handle, per usual, and it was sturdy in the handle, meaning it was intact and not broken.
This guy giving horrible customer service then proceeds to tell me that I need to go to a hardware store and find a replacement piece. Come again?
Yup, he told me to go to the store and replace the piece and then he could fix it. I think that is when I started seeing red. Did this mf-er tell me to go get a piece that he broke, after blaming me for breaking it? Mind you, it is a custom piece that was cut, measured for this bag and had notches carved into it for hooking into the bag for sturdiness. You want me to do what?
I then proceeded to let him have it. I stayed cool, because I am a cool guy, but I let him know he was completely in the wrong, rewind this interaction play by play from when I brought the bag, how many days I waited past when it should have been ready, how many times I had to take time out of my day to come up here, how I am a regular customer dropping off multiple pairs of shoes over the years, referring customers and writing a 5 star review. How dare you?
At this point, he is trying to cut me off from talking as if trying not to hear it, or learn this lesson. Now he is trying to state that I am right, asking for MORE TIME with the bag. No! Run me all the pieces to it. He retrieves all the elements (handle, gold buckles, etc.). I add this to the experience letting him know that I brought it in as 1 piece, it's leaving in 10. Lastly, he kept repeating that he text me about the issue. We went through msgs, there was no such text. SMH. I may have paid in advance, I don't recall but it will be the last $ I spend there and I warn you all to proceed with caution.