We actually thought we wouldn’t go to this extent of bitching about this interiors company, but when they refuse to entertain any repair on their shoddy workmanship despite the promised 2 year “free maintenance”, it is time to alert other unsuspecting customers who can be fooled by the charm of sales talk, the offer to “complete” work in 3 months or whatever and other “goodies”. In the end, the same guys actually paid us compensation for some portion of the delays and we wonder if this a tactic is used everywhere by Carafina to mollify customers who are put through various hardships including staying away from their homes on rental accommodation.
We won’t go into everything that happened, but to start with, ours was a renovation and after the initial period when the design was done with and demolition of existing structures completed swiftly including carting away of teak wood frames, granite slab etc. without informing us, all the pain started. Work began to progress slowly and we had no clue as to what was really happening and questions on delays elicited incoherent answers from all concerned. To compound matters, we were staying on apartment just below for rent and whose owner was coming for vacation from the UK after 3 months. Carafina’s senior designer( Pavan) who was overseeing the implementation started behaving weird and arrogant and even walked out on us when questioned on delays and other issues of workmanship. Overall, suffice to say Carafina ended messing up the schedule and it effectively took 6 months to complete, against the originally promised 3 months. Their business model is to employ contractors for each function who bring their own workforce, so if workers leave, all work comes to standstill or gets delayed.
The worst was their plumbing contractor by name Kanikraj whose work has left our home with leaking pipes, poorly laid tiles, creaky wash basins and even the commode layout is improper so much so that flushing more than twice also doesn’t help sometimes. This is no exaggeration, but all the plumbing work he did is causing embarrassment to us ever since, in the form of water seepage from bathrooms, washbasins and everything he and his team laid their hands on. Even some of the workers he brought indulged in theft of lights and taps which shows the kind of people we got to engage with after paying hefty sums specifically for waterproofing and other plumbing work. Funnily, just after we started occupying the renovated house last year, there was leakage at house below and the plumber guy was forced to undertake some more waterproofing. But he got extremely worked up on being pointed out on the workmanship and behaved like a street rowdy. And to think that for 15 years we lived without any leakage issues until then shows the workmanship that these people brought to bear upon us. Now into second year, leaks have again reappeared recently, and we are coughing up from our pocket to fix all the issues. We are sure more trouble is in offer as it is only the second year after renovation. And when called, we are told by Khaled, it is already 1.5 years completed into maintenance, and hence no more “major work” can be entertained. As for the taps and other things they installed, no guarantee card was handed over and the taps are already leaking. God only knows if these Jaguar taps are genuine as they are meant to stand without any issues for 10 years, and are we are conveniently told by Carafina to contact PC Mallappa and sons shop to figure getting a duplicate warranty/receipt.! All calls to proprietors, Messrs Gaurav, Sheikh go unanswered or get automated responses and this seems to be standard pattern.
The story is a bit long and we learnt hard lessons on engaging this interior company which promise the moon only to charge hefty sums and then left one in the lurch and with enduring embarrassment and doubts. We are sure there will be Karmic redemption for them for the money earned in this manner.