Bad Customer Service

I went to *** Lucky Tattoos on the 2nd of September 2017. I had a nice talk to Sean, the Tattoo artist that was going to help me (lovely young man). We agreed to touch up a sword tattoo that I had had already done in Spain. He would do a wiggly line and a couple of thorns. Then we looked to cover a little devil tattoo that I have on my shoulder with a rose. I didn't want a big tattoo on my shoulder and we were trying to find a rose that would not be too big, yet would cover it. I was quoted R900 and left R200 deposit and I had an appointment for the 9th September at 1'30.

I arrived at the shop at the arranged time. They gave me a page to fill in on both sides. Normally I expect to fill a liability waver page but this one was shocking. It asked you to tick off boxes saying that in the case of having to sue the shop, you agreed to pay all their lawyer fees; it mentioned any and every possible case of illness that can be aggravated by the risk of the needle (which although is understandable it was expressed in a truly scary way - I almost run out on the spot). This and that... all in all, the boxes redeemed the shop of every and all possible risks and it felt that I was on your own to face all possible things that could go wrong. Not a very nice feeling. I didn't have to complete such a crazy form in Spain or in places where I have received laser treatments or even when I had my eyebrows tattooed 5 times in a beauty centre or my eye line!! I got a really bad vibe then. I should have followed my intuition.

Saun and I we decided the roses were far too big so we decided to simply do the wiggly line for my sword, then we would research more tattoos in the future to cover my devil. I told Sean that I felt that I had one chance only to do it right (to cover my small tattoo) which was very small and quite faded but that the right tattoo would appear and we would be exchanging emails and designs, and he was totally cool with that.

Then I go to the front desk and I said: "How much do I owe you?" The lady says: "R300". I say: "What? for a line? Don't you think this is a little excessive?". She says: "Sorry. We have a R500 minimum fee policy". I said: "Nobody told me" (we thought that we would do both tattoos for R900; we didn't expect it not to work out). She said: "We normally say it at the beginning".

And then she proceeded to take my R300 (more like ***** or extract my R300) and of course, I wasn't going to make a fuss in the shop (although heavens knows I wanted to) and I paid while I said: "You will lose more because I won't be coming here to get my next tattoo(s) done. I will go somewhere else". And she said: "I am sorry", but she still took the money.

Now, you have to understand. I don't mind the money. I was happy with the wiggly line tattooed and I would have paid it anyway because they did what I wanted. But I felt that this was an unfair ******ion of my money, just because they could.

These people should learn a little customer service and public relations s****s. They should have negotiated just because it wasn't my fault that they forgot to mention their minimum fee policy. Maybe it wasn't their fault either. But I believe that Cape Town is a very small place and that word of mouth is very important for small businesses, so that a little good faith goes a long way and that a little giving and taking sometimes gets the balance right, both for the business and the customer.

I was really upset and feel that this was a case of an exchange made in very bad faith and I really would like to tell the manager in the shop to sharpen up their customer focused service, if they have any.