Lance, keep in mind there are many stories they told us when we asked "why" this-or-that, that didn't make sense to me, and the one about the lady's painted house could have been that, just a story, but was told to me by upper management who said it was so.
Michael's policy is "100% satisfaction guaranteed, (at any cost, no matter what the incident or who caused it)", rather than go to a lawsuit.There were many instances where I completely disagreed, as the framing department manager, argued about it ("that's not right!"), and "lost". That's one of the reasons I'm no longer there, my choice. Very frustrating. Although I usually "sided" with the customer, many instances were frivolous and sometimes downright ridiculous. Frames were brought back with huge dents in them (that happened after the husband picked it up and found out how much she paid for it, and then demanded she get a refund because it was damaged) that were not that way when they left there, and we were required to replace it at no charge, stuff like that.
People will sue, or demand refunds, over the slightest things because they can. However, I have seen instances where they had every right to do so, if it was to have a damaged piece of artwork replaced, or compensated for. Mistakes happen, frmaers are human, not perfect. M's has insurance for that. Some things are priceless and can't be compensated for.
Most of what M's does, all the archival/uv/etc is not necessarily done because it's the right thing to do, but to minimize the possibility of anyone ever suing them for something gone wrong, i.e. painting the woman's house. I heard that over and over, ad nauseum.
That was my experience there,I feel quite strongly about it (can you tell?) and I don't believe it was isolated. My committment as a business owner/framer now, is to do the right thing to begin with, as I know the rest of you do too, because it's the right thing, and not because I'm afraid I might get sued. That's all. I'm off my soap box now. Thanks for listening.
