Michael displays at various Art & Wine festivals throughout California.I bought a triangular glass vase from him and within a year it was leaking. I lost his business card, so I just used dried flowers from my yard in the vase. I found him this summer at one of the local fairs and told him about my leaking vase and he said simply to bring it back to him at the next fair and he would exchange it. There were no questions asked and he didn't seem surprised by the fact that it was leaking. So I guess this has happened before to him. Late yesterday, I wanted to catch him before he left, so I just grabbed the vase, dumped the flowers out, and drove two cities over to find him at a busy Art & Wine fair. When I showed him the vase, he immediately started to complain about the little bit of dirt that had collected on the bottom from the dried flowers. I told him I didn't have time to clean it and that the dirt wasn't the problem; it was the fact that the vase leaked. I did remind him that he told me I could just exchange it for a new one. He said he had just sold his last one like it. To make a long story short, he ranted and raved in a loud, rude, unprofessional manner for about ten minutes about the dirt in the vase and how his wife would never have such a dirty vase and that he couldn't resell it because he didn't know if the glue would stick to the dirt ... blah blah blah. When I tried to get him to focus on the problem -- he sold me a vase that leaked, and that it could be cleaned, he then found some microscopic chips in the glass which I had never seen. When you wash an awkward triangular-shaped, heavy vase in the sink (yes I did wash it in the past!) and put it in and out of the metal holder that comes with it, I suppose you could find some microscopic chips in the glass. Again these have nothing to do with the fact that it leaked since they are on the surface and the two glued glass pieces are a quarter-inch thick. By then he was so loud, he was attracting attention from passersby and all the vendors around him. He told me to come to his next fair the following week two more cities over & gave me another business card with the wrong date on it. By then I was tired of his rude behavior, accusations, and inability to deal with the issue, and I simply said, "You know, I can just Yelp about you." He replied, "Yeah & I'll say you're crazy." So you know what to expect next from him. If this vendor had simply told me to go home wash the vase and here's some glue, I would've been a happy camper. Instead of satisfying his current customer with a complaint, he was totally focused on how to make his next sale on the vase I had. After being berated with the same unreasonable, nasty conversation with him several times, I left, unhappier than when I arrived. I then realized Superglue and Yelp were my only recourse since I refuse to spend another several hours traveling to yet another fair only to be greeted by his rude, unprofessional behavior. I would never buy from this vendor again, not only because he sold me a defective product, but because of his nasty reception when I tried to rectify the situation by simply following his advice! My only consolation is to picture him in one of Dante's circles in hell as a Costco employee forever working the Customer Return Desk where he'll have to accept all returns with no questions asked from an infinite line of customers! read more
