The Painters

Review: FALSE ADVERTISING. Please read their website and EVERYTHING is false. Here is what happened to me. I sent this email to the company yesterday. I have not heard back as of yet.I am writing to express my utter disappointment in the work your company provided for my wife and me yesterday. I think you may be aware of this job already.I'll start with the positive, since I'm looking for something to be pleased about. Both gentleman who came (and also the manager/boss who responded later in the evening) were all very pleasant, polite and had professional attitudes. I am not trying to get your painters in trouble, its the fault of your company for either hiring people with no painting skill OR not training them properly before you send them out to represent your company. Unfortunately, that is all I can comment on that was positive about the experience. Your advertisement says pay only if you are satisfied. We paid the $450 agreed upon, but PLEASE do NOT take this as a sign of satisfaction. It hurt me to pay that money for what we received, but the crew put in so many hours (almost 16 with my wife helping the whole time) that I felt guilty not giving them payment, as bad as the job was. I am not sure how 5 rooms, 3 of which are very tiny, WITHOUT ceilings being painted can possibly take 16 hours for 2 men, but it did. That was for 1 very sloppy coat of paint (in many areas I can still see the old paint showing through). Window sills, doors, hot water pipes, all closets, radiators, and half the molding was forgotten about by the painters and still remain unpainted (they would have been here for another 5 hours had we asked them to complete the job) The saddest part is I don't think they even noticed. And the lines between the molding and walls are so bad I'm sure I could have done them better free hand but your painters used tape!! I attached some photographs of examples, but these are just a few spots... I couldn't possibly capture the quality of work in a few photographs. Let's be clear, these men were very nice and worked hard for 16 hours, but unlike what your advertisement states, these men were NOT professional painters. They weren't even amateur painters. Your advertisement states 1 painters can typically do 2 -3 rooms/375 sq feet in an 8 hour day. I just checked my exact square footage from a recent appraisal and my square footage is 670 ... hiring two painters with my wife working hard alongside... again... 16 HOURS, 1 coat, spots missing, parts of the apartment left unpainted. I am trying to figure out what they were actually doing for 16 hours?? I could have painted an entire house alone and with better quality in this time.I must say I was not expecting the most amazing job, because you're rates are fairly low and there is some truth to the adage that you get what you pay for. I was hoping it was not the case because I am the President of this Co-op building and we are always having indoor and outdoor painting done so I was hoping I found a hidden gem in your company so that I could use them for other projects in the future (which would be enough to keep a company busy).I spent a couple of days buying all the items you requested in your email. I actually found it hopeful that you requested particular brands of brushes etc, but it gave me hope that the painters would be meticulous. I even had to drive to Home Depot in Long Island City Queens to get the joint compound # 20, because none of the stores in Manhattan carried it. My wife called your number verify we had everything needed and specifically asked if the painters have their own drop cloths (very different from having cheap plastic tarps) for the floors and she was told yes. So you can understand my annoyance when one of the painters who showed up 30 minutes late and then said he had to go to the store to buy drop clothes (he bought cheap plastic) and poles for the rollers. He came back after awhile, ate breakfast and then said he needed to go out again to buy sandpaper. This is in additions to the multiple smoking breaks etc. Look, despite your advertisement, I have no objection to a person taking a break here and there. they are human being. and at the end of the day they ended up putting in 16 hours, but my initial impression of your painters couldn't have been further from what you advertised.So what did we end up with:1. Minus $4502. My wife stressed out and having to help your painters for 16 hours because she didn't trust them not to damage anything.3. A partially and poorly painted apartment that we now have to either pay someone...again... to fix or do ourselves. We have to paint the doors and molding including fixing the terrible lines. We have to give a second coat to the spots missed and where you can see the old paint showing through. 5. Your painters didn't think to either move the fridge or tell me they don't move them and I would have done it, because now we have a huge place they didn't paint and 2 colors on our walls.6. I have to now paint the ceiling, which was FINE before they came (and that's why we didn't ask them to paint it), but they hit it all over with their rollers and now there are multicolor paint patches on our ceiling.7. I broken mosaic table which your painter moved (we didn't ask him to) and it fell over and smashed. We didn't get angry at the time because everyone makes mistakes. 8. Also we discovered after they left, a painting was broken due to one of the painters standing on our bed. Our bed was covered in a blanket and a tarp to protect the paintings. We provided two ladders (which I am glad we did because the painters showed up with one step stool), but the painter chose to stand on our bed instead. What professional painter would stand on someones bed to paint without AT LEAST checking to see if it is ok? My wife said she saw him standing on the bed and asked him to get off because there was a painting beneath it,Desired Settlement: I would like this job redone the way THEIR WEBSITE DESCRIBES. They will pay for all labor, paint, supplies etc, since I paid for them the first time and they are basically wasted on a HORRIBLE job. I will forgive the broken table and painting.

Consumer

Response:

Hello:

I previously relayed this information to your representative on the phone. I started by searching for the email address they have been contacting me with which is [redacted]. Here are the other sites linked to this address...

From this I found sites such as this:

and this

and this

From this and other sites I found out that the person name is [redacted] and he runs the same scam around the country.. I then found an address and another company name for him...

Category: Paint & Wallpaper

This is their twitter page looking for day laborers.

Review: I signed a contract with the owner of the business Eastern Shore Painters and paid a deposit of $1145.00, on July 24,2013. The owner said he would get the job done over my vacation. That didn't happen. Then the owner said the job would be done before the summer was over. That didn't happen. The owner said his company would do preparation work, that never materialized. After repeated calls to the owner, he texted he would be able to do my job. Finally, I requested a refund of my deposit the end of October. The owner said the contact had a clause that would not allow me to break the contract and he intended to hold me to the contract. I said that was not acceptable, since he had not shown good faith in accomplishing the contract. In November of 2013, the owner texted I needed to be patient and he would get to my job first thing when the weather breaks in 2014. At this point, it was four months since I signed the contract and Eastern Shore Painters was suggesting I wait until March or April to begin preparation and painting I contracted. In November I filed a claim to get my refund. I got judgement by default because the owner did not respond or dispute my claim. Eastern Shore Painters still has not refunded my deposit.Desired Settlement: A full refund of my deposit in one payment.