The only reason I am giving this review two stars instead of one is because Jess made up for some…read moreof Linda's bad customer service.
So, here's what happened.
I have two pictures that were pre-matted from many years ago. I love them both, and unfortunately the one is a very delicate collage- hence I want to get it framed so it doesn't deteriorate further.
When I came into the store, Linda was the one that greeted me. Given the size of the pictures, she immediately went to the $65 poster special. Unfortunately, the frames are only black, silver, and gold, and I wasn't sure what I wanted.... after 5 minutes. She was very snippy with me on several accounts.
When she first saw the pictures she said the $65 because she obviously didn't think I could afford or pay for it something else. Actually, her exact words were " It's not worth it for you to frame these." Well, since I walked into your store -it is worth it to me. She was very judgmental about the one that was a collage. I had mentioned that I did them in high school, and I recognize that I look young -but I'm almost 40. She clearly thought I was a college kid that couldn't afford to be in the shop. But, frankly, even if I was- her judgement is not needed or appropriate.
So, I was already a bit annoyed because she made that comment within about 40 seconds of me walking into the store. Since the matting I had used originally was very old I was also considering new matting (she was also snippy about those prices). She immediately pulled out a grey color and said this one. I said I like it, but I can't go with Grey because of the color scheme of my house. I would like to look at white or cream. "Well, white doesn't look good on pictures -I don't know what you want."
Wow.
Linda -it's been two minutes, and I told you I wanted to look at white. The tension basically escalated from there. Then she told me that the white fabric matting was too expensive for me and I could only get the black, gold, or silver.
Well frankly, I didn't like any of them. So, I asked about the other 200+ frames in the store that was not the black, gold, and silver she pulled out. She snipped again. "Well I can't go through every one of these and tell you how much they cost. I have to get back to work. I have too much to do."
I hate to break it to you -but I AM your work. I should have just walked out right there and frankly, I wish I had but I didn't feel like driving to another framing store.
So I said, "Let me look around and when I decide what I want I'll come get you. That way you can do back to work." Then, ironically she didn't leave. "I need for you to decide, I can't wait here all day." So I said, "I'm not asking you to wait for me, I said I wanted to look around." "You'll have to make up your mind." "I hear that, I would like to look around and I'll come find you when I decided what I want." This whole interaction happened in less than five minutes and it was very bizarre. I have never had to ask to look around a store before - that's the point of walking into a store.
Anyway, about another 5 minutes later, I made my decision - and it was not the poster special. She took the order was still a bit snippy. But I ignored her. We talked about the back of the frame for the collage. I said that I needed to be able to access it because it was delicate. She said that they could not screw it and use the pin things that keep it in place instead. I said, ok that sounds good, just as long as I can access it. Before she took the picture, I asked her to hold it horizontally because it was delicate -naturally she didn't. I said "Wait be careful." She said "no it's fine, I'm not going to look anything." Well, yeah that didn't happen.
So, a week later I pick up the order and there were two people there -Linda and Jess. Jess was helping me and Linda walked over and said " It's fine you don't need to look at the picture." Didn't even say hi, was not the one helping me. Well, actually I do need to look at the picture because if something's not right -and it wasn't right, I wanted it taken care of before I took it home.
So naturally, several things were wrong. my original matting was sliced and the backing that they put in the frame didn't even fit correctly. Frankly my highschool matting job was more professional than what they did. On top of my matte being sliced, they removed my original backing (a piece of paper) and cut out where I had signed it and glued it on that bad backing board. Third problem- part of the collage was missing. Forth Problem -they double-sided taped it to my matte! I was so clear about that I needed to access the picture -Why wouldn't you tell me that you'd cut up my picture and tape on a new Board!?
Only thing Linda said was "Wasn't me" and walked away. Jess at least had the sense to ask "what can I do to make it better?" They did replace the mat- correctly within an hour, but I still wanted the original paper and Linda made it an overall bad experience.
