Black Cloud Tattoo and Piercing — Local services in Matthews

We took my 12 year old daughter there to get her ears pierced, which is something she has wanted for a long time, but was afraid to do. Both the young woman at the front desk and the man who was going to do the actual piercing were very friendly and patient and put her at ease. It was a very good experience.

However,

When I went to pay, he said "112.xx" and then flipped around the tablet for me to sign. I signed and then as the screen was changing I caught the total of 139.xx. The next screen was waiting for me to punch "OK" so I said "wait a second, you said 112 but it looked like that was a lot more."

He responded "oh, that was probably the tax" and he reached around and hit "OK." The receipt printed and he folded it in half and gave it to me. My wife and daughter were already headed out so I followed.

When I looked at the receipt, I discovered that a tip of almost 27 dollars had been added. I called back and he explained that that is added automatically and I should have seen it when I signed. He is right, I SHOULD have seen it, but since he said 112 and flipped over the tablet for me to sign, I did not pay as much attention as I should have. When I did question it in the store, the fact that he said it was "probably the taxes" lets me know he knew what was going on then but chose not to be forthright.

He said if I came back in, he would refund me and recharge my card for the service. By that time I was aggravated, so I said I would also like to return the $16 bottle of saline spray for after care. (It was overpriced and they never said how much it would be but I would have let that slide if this other thing had not happened.) When he rung it up again, he took time to show me where the tip was filled in, "but you can edit that if you want with whatever amount you want to tip." At that point, I did not feel like tipping anything so I left it blank.

I have never been in a piercing/tattoo parlor before and I don't know the protocol or expectations. Maybe a 25% tip is expected. I normally think of tattoo parlors as seedy, greedy places. This place was not seedy and I was beginning to think I had misjudged due to stereotypes but unfortunately it still came across as greedy in the end. The sad part is that the guy probably deserved a tip but his lack of candor earned him a big 0

UPDATE: The owner of someone in charge contacted me and said this was not acceptable and asked for more details and the name of the person I dealt with. Don't know what...

Went to get tattoos with my sister and a couple of family members while they’re in town for the holidays. We arrived around 5pm, and asked if they had availability for 4 small walk in tattoos. We were told that was fine, it would just be a 1-1.5 hour wait for the artist to finish up before we could start, and it’s first come first serve.

The receptionist was kind and helpful, & gave us the artists phone #. She instructed my sister to text him our reference photos, and said that he would respond with quotes, sketches, and tell us when he’s ready for us. She sent the reference images/size preferences and we spent 1.5 hours happily waiting in their lobby. We were so excited while looking at the artist’s work (Daniel) online, and were all looking forward to our sessions.

Around 6:30pm, we overheard girls in the lobby discussing how they were filling out their waivers after receiving piercing & tattoo services. I realized that we were never asked for our ID’s, put on a waiting list, or instructed to fill out a waiver. My sister walked to the new receptionist, who was previously rude to other patrons. When she finally lifted her head from her cell phone, my sister asked her if there was a waiver that the four of us needed to complete before getting the tattoos. She snappily instructed her to sit down, and stated that she would find her an artist to do the tattoos then. My sister gently stated that she’d sent our reference images to the artist, we just wanted to be sure that there wasn’t anything that needed to be completed before our sessions begin. Before she could finish the sentence, the receptionist yelled at her “I’m not listening to a word you’re saying, not even a little bit.”

I immediately gathered my family and left, because we won’t be spending our time or money in an establishment where paying customers are treated as subhuman. We were not unruly, interrupting or demanding, and her comment was out of pocket. If you are this unhappy, go home!

This person was Amanda, @amandapandapiercings. Her nasty attitude is damaging the livelihood of the artists, and affecting their income.

Disappointed that our time was wasted, & we didn’t get to appreciate Daniel’s work on our bodies. So sorry for any coworkers who are losing customers/commission to this...

I went to the Matthews shop for my first ever tattoo. It was a good experience but definitely not great. Not one other shop in the Charlotte/Concord area had any availabilities so I was pleasantly surprised when I called BCT & they told me to come on over since one of their artists had multiple cancellations that day. I rushed there only to wait at least 5 minutes after opening the door for anyone to acknowledge my existence. Once I was acknowledged, they were more than cordial but said he’d have to ask around to see if anyone could take me. All the while, the artist that had “multiple cancellations” sat having lunch with his family. I was told that (the wonderful) Melissa was finishing up a tattoo and would take care of me within 30 mins...that was all fine & dandy until the 30 mins slowly turned into 45 mins, then 1 hour, then 75 mins- all without the “cancellations” artist getting off the couch to help out! Another walk in client came in & the “cancellations” artist gladly took him back at the SAME time Melissa took me back!!! I needed a small ankle tattoo done & maybe that was not his forte, but he could’ve at least attempted to help the rest of the team out & could have quickly done my tattoo. Made me feel completely invisible having to wait nearly a total of 2 hours when he could’ve easily completed my tattoo within a few minutes. Looks like he was only concerned about how much money he would’ve “wasted” on me, when in reality, he could’ve gotten at least $100 from me if he would’ve stopped complaining about how many cancellations he had that day and just taken care of me after his lunch break. It was really a frustrating experience, but I’m so thankful I ended up with Melissa doing my tattoo because she was amazing, made me feel SEEN & comfortable & gave me one amazing tattoo! Melissa is GREAT, the shop, however, is nothing more than...