We saw their booth at the most recent Toronto Home show, registered for a call to come to our home for an estimate to re upholster 8 antique heart backed dining room chairs (circa 1930). Their office contacted us shortly after to set up a time for "Ed" to come out. Ed shows up with books of material and a great sales pitch. Looks at the chairs sees that 4 or 5 of them were a bit loose in some of the rung joints, recommends they be injection glued as needed, rewebbed, new foam cushions, double welt trim. Otherwise the chairs were pristine. I tell him I would like to visit their factory to take a look. Next day, I do so and see a going concern so I figure that while the price of $1600 was a bit steep, we would go with them.
They pick up the chairs and about 3 weeks later I get a call from Tino who says he is overseeing the job and while the chairs are "primo" they should be taken apart, reglued and then the new upholstery applied. He quoted me $881 and while I had a bad feeling about this I figured the set had cost us A LOT of money so should get the best treatment they could offer.
After another few weeks I decide, albeit too late, to google thier name. I find this site with 6 reports, the BBB has 41 complaints in 36 months. All horror stories with the "m/o" exactly like ours. I left two messages for Tino to discuss my concerns, meaning what I had discovered about the company. Between my calls, a customer service person, Cathy, calls me to set up delivery. All we could do was hope we were not among the other victims.
Thurs Mar 6 the truck shows up. I ask them to bring them on in. They say the need payment first. I decline to pay unless I see the chairs and I'm told I can see them in the truck. (delivery company was used, Master Craftsman did not deliver themselves). We go out to the truck and found the 8 chairs to be a complete mess. Upholstery was fine but they had broken the chair backs to get them apart so they could reglue them. Further inspection showed they had even split one of the chair legs. We were disgusted by what we saw. On the spot I contacted their customer service dept and made an arrangement to see them at 8:30 the next morning.
We arrived, met a young lady named Erin and the guy who had disassebled, reglued and reassembled the chairs prior to covering. The guy was clueless. I asked him why he would pry apart a solid joint to glue it when it was obviously solid, no real answer other than he doesn't do the sales just follows the work order. I asked him why he would know the backs apart when only the rungs in some were loose, again he follows the work order. I asked why we had not been told they would be knocking the backs apart, again no answer. Tino was no where to be found when I asked for him. Erin said we should not have been sold the dismantle and reglue without a refinishing. I said that was good to know now. They offered to take them completely apart again, strip them, refinish and re upholster them again at no charge. We made it quite clear we would not leave them there under any circumstance and based on the work we had seen, the explanations we had received and the horror stories about them that we had discovered. We indicated we would likely have to pay someone else another $2000 and needed them to do something monitarily for us. Erin spent most of her time running from the factory area to someone in the office during all of this. Who ever it was had no intention of showing their faces. Erin came back, knocked $500 off the bill, we paid up any got the chairs out of there. We had Erin mark the bill as "adjusted price" and "paid under protest" per my lawyer's advice.
After we got home we discovered they had not completed the welt around the base of the chairs. A phone call to Erin got her to agree to ordering 48 ft of it which I will pick up once they get it it. When I do that I'll show her the picture we took of one of the chair backs that split and fell apart at dinner last night.
Poor customer communication, poor recommendations for work to be done, poor workmanship. They obviously ran the bill as much as possible. All in all just a disgusting experience. I would not leave a saw horse with them. Stay away.
Pops
Milton, Ontario
Canada
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