Alley Cat Tattoo & Body Piercing

I have gotten both of my tattoos at Alley Cat, so when my son wanted snake bites, it was a no brainer for me because I trusted them. Then Covid happened and we had to wait for under the mask piercings to resume. We went today. Upon entering I told the receptionist that he wanted a piercing. She asked if we had masks. My son did but we had to go out to the car for ours. I came back in a few seconds later, and said again that my son wanted a piercing. I received no response, and asked, should he just have a seat? She nodded. There was no movement in or out of the piercing room for more than an hour. We watched other people come into the queue, be greeted and asked what kind of piercing they wanted and be shown the appropriate jewelry. I asked my son if she had asked him anything when we went out, and he said no she did not speak to him at all, but she did speak to the other people, and he was beginning to feel singled out.

About 2-2.5 hours in, we decided to call it a day. There was no respect shown to us as people, or for our time, this is our only day off in the week. When I got home , I called to speak to the owner. The receptionist was as sullen on the phone as we found her in the studio. She said the owner was out to lunch. I said I would call back. An hour later, I did, and the owner Nick was available. I told him about my experience, and he said she had told him I called and told him "her side", and that she had spoken to my son. I appreciate a business owner has his employees' back, not when they are untruthful, and not when they cost someone business. I'd advise Nick to check some of the other online reviews, there are a few that make the same complaint.

My previous experiences at Alley cat were good, this experience was enough to sour my good will. My family won't be back. My son will get his piercing at one of the other studios in town, as well as our future planned ink work.

Review: My husband made a consultation appointment with the shop. He gave a $100 deposit towards future services and made an appointment for the future to begin his request of tattoos. My husband then decided not to go with it as the ideas that were given to cover an existing tattoo did not meet his satisfaction. So my husband asked if the $100 could go towards a cover-up I wanted to get. I stopped in and spoke to the individual for a few moments explaining what I was looking for (my first impression was that he was rude and did not have great customer service skills) I made an appointment upon leaving for an actual consultation appointment. I was not able to make the consultation appointment and my husbands original appointment came up that I missed and I did not contact the facility. We had personal health issues in our family so at the moment that was the least of our worries about calling and notifying someone that we could not make it. My husband emailed the gentleman in regards to getting my tattoo fixed but per an email the individual stated he would gladly help but that we would need to place another $100 deposit down and that our original $100 deposit would be taken and not refunded because I missed the consultation appt. and the actual appointment my husband had originally made. I honestly never saw anything stating this anywhere and never signed something. I received a paper with my consultation appointment but it did not state anything about penalty's for missing the appointment. The gentleman also stated that he tried reaching us but I never received a phone call or any messages. Like I said it was a personal health issue and calling the facility was the least of my worries but once everything was ok we contacted by email.Desired Settlement: I would like my $100 refunded. I have never heard of any business taking your entire deposit of that amount for that reason. Most medical offices may charge a small fee after missing so many appointments but never taking someone's $100 deposit. I will never do business with that type of facility. I honestly didn't even feel comfortable to have this gentleman perform this as the first time I had met him he had an attitude and was rude. Not a great first impression but we had already given $100 deposit so I wanted it to be used.

Business

Response:

We at Alley Cat Tattoo wish to please all our customers and are sincerely concerned to hear of any customer that is dissatisfied with our services. We have decided to fully refund this customers deposit and hope to serve them in the future. Thank you, Sincerely from Alley Cat Tattoo

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me. I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,