ComplaintsforAll-Terior Painting & Power Washing Services

• Initial Complaint

  03/15/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I hired this company last fall to paint my kitchen cabinets. The job was completed and paid in full on or around October 25th. He even asked for a 5 star review that day. We didn't give him a review. On February 7, 2022 I noticed cracks in the paint on the bottom of two small cabinets. Since the company has a satisfaction guarantee and I thought it was a small fix, I asked they be repaired. Matt ****, the owner, first said he never saw this before. Then he said we damaged the cabinets. He also said moisture caused this and maybe the type of wood. He ultimately concluded over this past weekend that my family must have damaged the cabinets. He would not honor his satisfaction guarantee. Our cabinets are from 1977 and are in the condition one would expect. I'm not a professional painter. He is and took the job. He used my kitchen cabinets to advertise his business. On that advertisement, as homeowner, I said two cabinets are cracking and I am not satisfied with his work. He angrily replied blaming me and POSTED My FULL NAME AND HOME ADDRESS and shared this with several pages.

  Business response

  04/15/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 10, 2022/04/05) */ BBB Complaint ID#: ****** Dear Customer, Thanks for sharing your candid feedback. We appreciate and value all feedback from our customers so we can continually improve. We always aim to deliver a great experience and set a high standard for our company. We are sorry to know that your experience didn't match these expectations. In response to your complaint that you feel we didn't honor the 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' promise on our contract, we would like to explain what that is intended to mean. Our satisfaction guarantee is not to be confused with a warranty, which we now believe you assumed it was. We are grateful for this misunderstanding as an opportunity to revise the wording on our quotes to ensure our customers understand clearly. We do offer warranties but only on exterior work which is a separate written contractual agreement promising the integrity of the product used for a certain time period under certain conditions. Painting contractors don't warranty interior painting for many reasons. Some of ours are structural movement or shifting of the house, moisture issues, climate control, and excessive wear and tear from customer contact. Our satisfaction guarantee for all our painting projects both interior and exterior is a guarantee of your experience of the job process from beginning to end which includes good communication and customer service, cleaning up each day, being on time and completing the job in a timely manner, our crew having professional attire and behaving in a professional manner by not swearing, playing loud music, smoking etc, and supplying you with a printed custom quote. And most importantly, completing the detailed outlined scope of work every step of the way and using the exact products outlined. A satisfaction guarantee does not promise to accept responsibility for any negligent damage done to a paint job that is outside of our control. Your kitchen cabinets, as you admitted, are from 1977 which means they are 45 years old. They are also soft pine. They are multi-seam in that there are many separate pieces. Any damage done to them by force, well after job completion, as we believe happened in your case, would cause the film of paint covering over the seams to crack where the panel meets the stile (see attached photo diagram of a cabinet structure). Painting over any surface does not add structural strength to the surface it is applied to. It is all subject to the care and use of people that interact with those surfaces properly without abuse or neglect. This was probably caused by someone in your household who unintentionally used more force than normal. These things can happen especially with youth and is unfortunate. I'm sorry that this may have been what happened to you. We took the job as you pointed out but with the assumption that you would know that your interior kitchen cabinet painting job would be a cosmetic improvement to your home, not a structural reinforcing of your cabinet. In the photos attached there are three sets, the Before Painting, the Right at Completion Painting, and the Three Months Later Painting. In the Right at Completion Painting photos there is clearly no damage at all. In the Three Months Later Painting photos (supplied by you) there is a visible dent on the cabinet door where we believe the cabinet door was forcibly banged into the metal hood of your stove which it is visibly in the alignment of. This force would cause cracking of the film of paint over the multiple seams. In regards to asking for a 5-star review, which you mention multiple times, yes, we unashamedly always ask our customers at the end of every job if have earned a 5-star review with them. This is how we gauge our quality performance as a company and it allows for the opportunity for the customer to address any concerns, and for us to meet/resolve those concerns. This is another major part of our customer satisfaction guarantee in that we only ask for final payment after doing a full walk-through of the job and receive assurance from the customer that they are completely satisfied. We received this assurance from you on the final walk-through of October 25th, 2021 at 7:00 pm where you happily paid your final payment. We understand your frustration at having your personal info posted online and we have removed it as requested. This was in response to the negative post by you on the Belchertown Facebook forum advising the public not to use our company. We responded in the comments showing our side of the story which you deleted. There were also forum members who posted comments in our favor defending our company, which you deleted also. We felt that we had no other choice but to create our own post shortly after on the same forum explaining our side of the story including all facts of the job by posting photos & name/address of the job so as not to confuse with other customers we have of a similar name. You had also posted our personal home address online prior our post. You also complained that we used the photos of your job to advertise our business and asked they be removed online, which we have done as requested. We would never post photos if a customer asked us not to. In fact, many of our customers are excited and proud to have their job photos posted on our Facebook page. You did not state that you didn't want your photos posted online. This possible photo usage was mentioned verbally at the time of the original estimate. In fact, you found our company from seeing other customers' jobs posted on the Facebook forum. When we posted your photo's, they were anonymous. Attached is a screen shot of a text we received by you on October 26, 2021 at 8:33 pm, one day after job completion, offering and supplying additional photos to post on Facebook of your job. We offered to fix the cabinet for you at an additional charge. If you change your mind, we are here for you at 413-596-2222. Lastly, we resolve to not contact you further as you requested. We truly wish that you had had a better experience with us and we are sorry that you are dissatisfied. We hope that this will help you to understand the miscommunication over of our Satisfaction Guarantee and that you would please remove all negative commentary towards our company. Thank you, Matthew ****

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩