I've been a customer of this shop for some years now. I've spent around $2,000 here.
(1) But I had an extremely disappointing experience on September 28, 2024 when I was harassed by an employee, who repeatedly interrogated/badgered me about why I had not picked up a print that I had arranged to see again in order to photograph it for my records.
A few days earlier, I had left it at the shop after seeing it and deciding it was not the quality I required.
When I left Museum Quality, I went to Trader Joe's and got groceries--two large bags' worth. I was on the way back home when I was thinking "Well, I could actually give it to someone else, who might not mind..."
So I called Museum Quality and asked them if they could hold it for a few days longer.
Garrett cross-examined me, asking me 3-4 times the same question: "Why didn't you pick it up when you were in here (half an hour earlier)?"
I explained to him twice that I had other chores to do. I didn't think I should have to defend myself or go into detail (two bags of heavy groceries, I'm on foot).
This kind of treatment from a store of its caliber is unusual. In fact, I can't think of it ever happening before in my life. Was I racially harassed or targeted? I was treated like a naughtya child, not an adult.
I am in a state of shock. None of the other employees subjected me to such rude, humiliating, unnecessarily confrontational behavior.
When I asked for the email address of the owner, Garrett refused to.
I did tell him that he sounded like a broken record after he asked for the third or fourth time why I didn't pick it up, as if (1) he didn't believe me and (2) that I had done "something wrong." I had told them that I had no use for the print and that they could hang it on their walls, etc.
No one said, "You cannot leave it here." I was trying to make a point and express my disappointment. I had no legal obligation then or now to bring it home. When I actually thought of someone to give it to, I changed my mind.
No adult likes being scolded, especially for something so minor.
Maybe he was annoyed because we had debated the quality of the product. I had mentioned that my photographer friend, M.F.A. from the U.W., had noted a sharp dropping off of quality from the digital image I brought in as well as from a book which had the same image reproduced but with far greater subtlety.
He refused to even consider comparing the digital image with the print they had made.
In any case, Garrett's conduct was totally unwarranted. His job does not consist of interrogating and badgering and pointing the finger at customers as to why they did not pick up a print they were dissatisfied with.
He asked me why I hadn't told him I was on my way out even though I was there less than a couple of minutes and he was working out back. That is something one requires a child, one's own child, to do.
(There is plenty of storage for a flat print that is unframed. I had gone to pick it up a day after they messaged me that it was ready. The company states that after TWO MONTHS if the product has not been picked up, they will consider it abandoned).
Whatever mood Garrett was in that day, he should not have allowed it to cloud his judgment, which up until today, IMO, had never been seriously in question.
It's important to note the following:
(2) When having MQF print AND frame a digital image, they do not give a breakdown of the different costs--in contradistinction to fineartamerica.com, for instance. There is something very troubling about this, too.
Caveat Emptor:
This is a case where one buys something one has not actually seen. read more