I just wanted to inform you of an unpleasant experience I had with one of the local merchants, Cobbler's Corner, of Northville.
I try to frequent the merchants in my local town. I have periodically taken shoes and things to the Cobbler's Corner for repair. He does not do a great job, and is rather expensive, but again I want to support my hometown.
I dropped off a pair of suede like shoes to have new heels put on. When I went back to pick them up, there was no place to park out front so I had my 30 yr old daughter jump out and I drove around the block. She jumped in the car with the shoes, and I thought I had better take a look. The shoes were a mess the fabric finish was all messed up and coming off in several places. I can upload a picture or bring you the shoes to see for yourself. I drove back around the block and parked in the structure to take the shoes back to the store. I walked into the store and placed one of the shoes on the counter and the owner said to me, "What did you do to them?!" As if in the 3-5 minutes it took me to park I did something to my shoes. I said, "No, I was going to ask you what happened to my shoes." He then said, "You brought them in that way." I said, "Now why would I have a pair of shoes fixed that looked like this?" I also told him that it looked like glue spilled on them and that he tried to wipe it off and it took the finish off. Another man came from the back room and started yelling stating that they did not do anything to my "damn" shoes and to not bring my garbage there for them to fix. I told him that the shoes only needed heels and there was nothing wrong with them when I dropped them off. The owner then said, "I did not do anything to your damn shoes. I even sprayed dye on them trying to fix them up." I told him that was the problem. The dye ate the fabric off the shoe. The other man grabbed my shoe from me and started scraping the fabric on the toe of the shoe, scraping off about an inch more of the fabric and said, "See the fabric comes right off." I said, "It didn't before you sprayed something on them and now you have even ruined them more by scraping more fabric off the shoe! I wore those shoes long enough to put new heels on them and none of the fabric had come off while wearing them". Both men continued to yell at my daughters and I. The owner originally lied about applying anything to the fabric until my daughter pointed out the blue spray inside the shoes. The blue dye even comes off on your hands. I was very upset and my daughters were flabbergasted that a store owner would treat a customer like this. I had been in retail for over 10 yrs, I know it is a difficult business, but I did nothing to make him treat me so rudely. He has tarnished the reputation of the Northville merchants. I have never seen anything so rude in my life. He did give me back the $14 (far too expensive for the quality of work and treatment) price I paid to have the shoes repaired but made no offer to replace or compensate me for my shoes in any way. I really was not looking for him to replace my shoes originally, but after his behavior I really do feel that I should be compensated for them. After giving me the money back for the repair, he told me to get out of his store and never come back or he would call the police. I should have stayed right there until he called the police. However, these two men were yelling and swearing so much at me and my daughters that my daughters were very afraid they may become violent, so we left.