Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 Aug 13, 2014 5:30 pm Wanted to post about a recent terrible experience with Myaree Ceramics in Perth in the hope of saving someone else having the same issue. Went to Myaree Ceramics looking for tiles. Found the ones we liked - 300x600 concrete look tiles with a sort of grain running the length of the tile. All good, ordered and paid for them. Weeks later when our tiler starts he rings us and says 'I've started laying and some of these tiles aren't right.' Turns out the issue was that in a random number of tiles per box the grain runs the other way, across the tile. This is not the look we wanted or ever knew existed ... certainly we had never been shown it. The real issues started however when we went back to Myaree Ceramics to see if we could get some extra boxes to swap out the offending tiles. First they told our interior designer that she was wrong, that the grain always went both ways and that she should have known. When she protested that their own display never showed it they told her she should have looked in the catalogue and a fight ensued. This to an interior designer!? (great marketing) Then when I got involved the owner told me it was now my fault (despite her display not showing the two grains) and that I should have looked in the catalogue too. She offered me a discount on the 20 new boxes I would need (20-25sqm of new tiles ... still another $1,000!) and that was all they were prepared to do. I reluctantly agreed to this as, of course, you have to keep your trades working and we couldn't afford a hold up. Anyway that night I pulled up the online catalogue and lo & behold even the catalogue didn't show this different grain! I rang back the next day and said I wasn't prepared to go ahead with our previous deal because I had quite clearly proved that it was Myaree Ceramics who were at fault here in a pretty clear case of misleading advertising. I was told in no uncertain terms that they acept no responsibility for "variances" (love that) in the tiles and that anyway as soon as my tiler opened a box and laid a tile no further responsibility will be taken by them. I obviously protested that we couldn't possibly have known without unpacking every box of tiles but once again they just didn't want to hear. I ended up having to get some of our tiles laid in the wrong direction, hide as many as we could behind mirrors etc and still purchase another 8-10 boxes from Myaree Ceramics the cause of the issue in the first place! The thing that really gets me however is not that I'm out of pocket or that some of my tiles are now going the wrong way .. it's that not once did they accept any responsibility for this whole debacle. Worse, they actually made out like it was the designer's fault ... no hang on, it's my fault ... no wait up, it's the tiler's fault! Put quite simply the worst experience we have had in building our house and one I suggest you avoid like the plague. We bought most of our tiles from Tiles Expo/Tiles Boutique and wish we had bought the lot from there. Do yourself a favour ... AVOID MYAREE CERAMICS! Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 2Aug 13, 2014 6:36 pm Swinter what you've experienced is certainly enough for you to have a serious axe to grind against the tile shop. But IMO I think your interior designer should be portioned some of the blame here. They really should know everything about a product the recommend. Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 3Aug 17, 2014 1:33 am I imagine legally they are wrong. A product must behave in the way it is expected to, or advertised to. This relates to appearance and function. I would send them a 'legal' letter quoting the relevant parts of the consumer act. It sounds too late now though. Any pictures? Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 5Aug 17, 2014 12:32 pm Mgilla, you're right to be suspicious ... I agree that these forums can sometimes be abused. That is not the case here however. I posted because there was nothing we could have done to have averted this situation ... neither us or the interior designer. I'd be happy to wear some of the blame if there was. This is simply a blatant case of false advertising. But even that's not why I posted. The real issue here is that when given an opportunity to fix the problem, Myaree Ceramics blamed everyone but themselves. They were categorically not going to accept any responsibility for their actions and were certainly not going to wear any cost they had caused us. In that situation I have no problem letting others know what happened such that they might avoid the same pitfall. Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 6Aug 18, 2014 9:41 am mgilla Swinter what you've experienced is certainly enough for you to have a serious axe to grind against the tile shop. But IMO I think your interior designer should be portioned some of the blame here. They really should know everything about a product the recommend. Have to agree here as well. That and variances occur, it's just what happens in the stone industry. The amount of times I have heard from landscape yards, tile shops and stone supplies that the installer didn't check to see if there are any natural variances is amazing. They always just seem to crack open one box at a time and start laying. He really should have laid out all of the stone to check for variance first and then positioned/layed it as such that it would not have mattered. Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 7Aug 18, 2014 12:45 pm From the original post, I gather that the tiles were not stone, they were "concrete look", so there shouldn't be much in the way of natural variations. And I don't see why an interior designer should know the ins and outs of every single product on the market, there are a LOT of products. I tend to agree with the OP here, the tile shop should have known and advised accordingly, and more importantly set up their display properly. Re: Very Bad Experience - Myaree Ceramics 8Aug 18, 2014 1:39 pm Yes Trixee, once again I'd like to point out this was not a "variation." This particular brand/style of tiles are available in a few subtly different variations. Albeit subtle, they are each distinct in their own way and you could create a variety of different looks using one or more of the varieties. Myaree Ceramics only showed one of these in their display, as in, if you wanted a different variation you'd have to look in the catalogue and order it specifically. The problem is there is no picture or variant in the catalogue that has 300 x 600 tiles with the grain going across the tile. It simply doesn't exist. I can't see how that makes it the interior designers fault. More to the point what this post is really about is the way a business handles a situation such as this. You can react in one of two ways. One of these ways is to do the right thing, even if you're not in total agreement, and enhance your reputation along the way. The other is to be dishonest and actively go out of your way to stone wall the client at every turn. Sure you might save yourself a few dollars but it results in posts like this one. There are enough traps, expenses and pitfalls in the building process already ... this is one you don't need and can avoid. Take your business elsewhere. 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