Leather Aid

Phillip Mark- Leather Aid: Worst upholstery job at staggering cost with no accountability

Phillip Mark took a deposit from us to reupholster the arms of a couch with leather and dye the couch another colours as well as reupholster a chair with leather. The brief then changed to turfing the chair and reupholstering the entire couch in fabric, which he assured me he did. Throughout this endeavour it was forever challenging to get hold of him. I asked him 3 times for a new costing as we provided the fabric for the job I assumed the cost would decrease. He then on a phone call told me ‘don’t worry there won’t be any hidden surprises we’ll just keep the price the same as now obviously there is a lot more labour involved than on the previous brief’. I thought it was a bit punchy but figured maybe I didn’t understand what was involved. In hindsight after speaking to multiple other professionals in the industry it has been confirmed that I was grossly overcharged. Things took time because apparently his upholsterer hadn’t paid attention to the corduroy lines and needed to redo some things. What was eventually delivered was a shocking display of awful workmanship. The seat cushions looked lumpy and puckered with no uniform alignment. Every zipper placement on the bottom cushions varied from one another. Some seat cushions were upholstered the wrong way around meaning they jutted out from the couch. The back cushion covers grossly differed in size to each other. He originally fixed a seem that went straight down the front of a seat cushion and a back cushion which’s corduroy lines were the opposite to all the other 5 cushions. I then again expressed my upset about the couch and suggested I find someone else to fix things and he pay for the costs. (We were now over R22000 down for labour and fabric) He ignored my msgs and calls and only responded once I threatened legal action claiming his phone had been ****** and he had to do a sim swap. He then offered to fix the other things ‘without admitting fault’. After speaking to two different independent upholsterers it was very clear that the only way of fixing the mess was buying new fabric and fitting entire new covers. I demanded a full refund from Phillip as well as compensation for the ruined fabric to which he originally responded that he was open to discussing a partial refund but didn’t think a full refund was fair. Once a new costing was worked out and I enquired what he felt was fair we are back to Phillip ignoring my msgs and calls. Unfortunately I only discovered all his bad reviews on Hello Peter after the fact. Of course he doesn’t have a reviews option on his actual work website.