Laminate profile & blinds horrible experience.

In December 2023, I requested the services of Laminate Profile and blinds to come and take measurements for block out blinds in my apartment (sitting room with a sliding door & 3 bedrooms) and standard blinds in my kitchen.

I paid the 70% deposit as required and in January 2024 he contacted me to install the blinds. He sent a sub contractor (who did not take the initial measurements & who I had never met) to do the installation.

The first problem was when the sub contractor was installing the blinds in the sitting room and there was a weird gap to which we realised the initial measurements were incorrect. My suspicion was that he assumed the sliding door was in the middle & divided the measurements by 2 instead of measuring correctly. The second problem was that the blinds installed were very shear. So shear that I could see the security gate behind the blinds. There was nothing block out about it.

When I called the owner of Laminate profile & blinds and told him what was happening, he proceeded to tell me he didn’t know what happened and was willing to correct it. He then asked if I could pay a portion of remainder of the balance so he can fix the issue because “it’s January” - alluding to the fact that he doesn’t have the money to fix his mistake. I told him I’ll wait for the rest of the blinds to be installed.

When the sub contractor installed the first bedroom’s blinds, same issue. The blinds are so shear it looked like a lace curtain. At this point is when I contacted him again to discuss the dissatisfaction of the blinds.

We went back and forth on what’s app arguing until lawyers were involved. From him expecting me to pay an extra R3500 to “balance his losses” because he’ll be taking the major loss. We eventually came to an agreement where he agreed to replace the incorrect blinds.

My biggest issue with him was: 1) his lack of accountability. Never once did he admit that the blinds he provided were not block out blinds. From blaming me and saying I chose the materials to blaming his supplier. The material I chose came in 2 types. One block out & one normal blinds. He gaslit me so much! 2) lack of communication. I ended up having to communicate directly with the installer to set up a date to install the correct blinds. He would keep you waiting the whole day to confirm a time for installation even after giving him your work schedule. 3) he works with a sub contractor which means scheduling appointments is a lengthy process. The subcontractor obviously has his own clients to handle as well. So you can imagine bad how bad communication from Laminate blinds can lead to a frustrating process of trying to get a date and time. This is why I eventually contacted the sub contractor myself and set up times to have the blinds installed.

Once the correct blinds were installed, I paid him the remaining balance and we cut ties.

If you do use him just the weary. According to him, in his many years of being in this business, this was the first time this has ever happened. How he handled this situation was very frustrating and greatly disorganised me. I do understand mistakes happen but gaslighting a paying customer for your error is not how you handle such situations.