This review mostly has to do with tattoo artist Mel Georgakopoulos but also reflects a general…read morepattern of disorganization and poor communication at Wintership.
I chose to work with Wintership (and Mel in particular) because Wintership is an extremely well-respected tattoo parlor (and one of my siblings has had numerous tattoos done at Wintership over the years) and Mel is a professional tattoo artist with an impressive portfolio, years of experience, and many satisfied clients who have left positive reviews of his work. However, I have been consistently surprised and disappointed that Mel and Wintership have met so few basic expectations throughout this entire experience.
In April, I scheduled a tattoo consult with Mel for a tattoo I'd had in mind for a few years. I sent a detailed email with reference images and descriptions as suggested on Wintership's website.
At the consult, Mel took a $40 cash deposit and was totally unprepared for the consult. He hadn't looked at the email and didn't even know it existed, so most of our 10 minute consult was him reading the email. (All emails to Wintership appear to go to a single shared mailbox.) We did discuss the design, and I felt encouraged by his creative insights. I asked to be kept updated with in-progress art so we could collaborate, and we scheduled an appointment for May 30th.
Unfortunately, I heard nothing from Mel over the coming weeks and was concerned by the total lack of communication. On the morning of Friday, May 26th, I reached out for any artwork in advance of our Tuesday appointment (Monday was a holiday), but he was already off for the weekend. I respect people's time away from work, so I figured maybe I'd hear back sometime Tuesday morning so we could collaborate on the design. That didn't happen.
On Tuesday, the day of the appointment, I finally heard from Mel less than an hour before our scheduled time. He texted to say he couldn't find my email, which suggested to me that he hadn't been working on the design at all. I reminded him of my email address so he could find it and said, "I was expecting to have seen some art by now, and I'm not comfortable moving forward with the appointment today without input on the design. If it's possible to reschedule, can we do that?" He agreed and was very apologetic. We rescheduled for June 14th, and he said, "Ok. Again, sorry for the inconvenience. I'll send art before the appointment." I felt disappointed but fairly comfortable with his reassurance, but that ultimately turned out not to be true.
Early in the afternoon the day before our rescheduled appointment, I texted Wintership to see if I could see any art because I'd expected to have already seen art and was getting worried. Mel was busy tattooing at the moment, and I was told the message would be passed along. As of 9 p.m., I had heard nothing. I texted, "Given the continued lack of art (which was assured) and therefore the inability to collaborate on the art beforehand, I'd like to rebook my appointment with [another artist at Wintership] and have my $40 deposit transferred to [that other artist]. I understand there will be a wait. I'm quite disappointed with this whole experience as I thought I would have had this tattoo on May 30th."
The next day (the day of the appointment which was scheduled for 4:30 p.m.), Wintership finally responded at 5:05 p.m. with a line drawing of the tattoo concept--the first art I had seen the entire time. I responded, "To get art (that was requested and assured to be provided in advance so we could collaborate) a half hour after our scheduled appointment time does not fulfill the expectation." Wintership refused to even attempt to schedule me with the artist I requested, but they did refund my $40 deposit, after which they insulted me. They also managed to remove this exact same review from Google Reviews. Apparently they REALLY do not like accountability.
Throughout this ordeal, Mel and Wintership have consistently demonstrated staggering incompetence and disrespect. I have to assume based on this experience that I should not be attempting to do business with Wintership. Fare thee well, Wintership. I hardly knew ye.
