Modoa Interiors LLC

When I first spoke with Beverly Odom about possibly helping us with a kitchen remodel, I asked about her working process. She said she would do a consultation, get some ideas, consult again, and then draw formal plans, which we could then view and purchase from her. After the consultation she said that it would take her a couple weeks to think about things and get back to us. This alone surprised us, but then we were shocked to wait the two weeks and only receive an invoice for all the work she had not done yet. We questioned this and she said we needed to pay her in full before she would share any of her ideas with us. I told her we were expecting to do another brief consultation to see if we were on the same page and wanted to proceed with the formal plans, but she insisted that we pay her up front and that we would be obligated to pay her for her ideas, whether we liked them or not. This was a big surprise and had not been clearly explained beforehand. She insisted this is standard practice, but I have worked very successfully with many contractors and professionals of all sorts and have never come across this. Everyone else has given us a free consultation and estimate, and definitely did not require full payment before starting work, much less before even telling us what that work might be. She ended up recommending that we work with a different designer and we agreed that would be best. Then we received another invoice for just the consultation, which included the line, "Your satisfaction is guaranteed". We were not satisfied; felt we'd received nothing of value, and that she had only wasted our time by making us wait two weeks for a form letter invoice she easily could have given us when we first met. I expressed this, but she said we had to pay her for her time whether we got anything of value or not. Our satisfaction was only guaranteed if she actually did any work for us, and since she hadn't done anything yet, our satisfaction was not her concern. She then said that if we didn't pay within 30 days, she would add a $30 late fee and continue to do so every 30 days after that. She finished by saying that she was busy, had nothing more to say to me, and then hung up. It is unfortunate that things did not work out and maybe we didn't ask exactly the right questions about her process up front, but we did try. We’ve never worked with an interior designer before and maybe their standards are different from everyone we’ve worked with previously. Even if that is the case, though, I believe that as the professional, it was her responsibility to fully explain herself, her work, her process, and her billing practices to us. She should not just assume that everyone uses the same "standard" that she does. We are very unsatisfied, feel completely undervalued as customers, and definitely would not recommend her to others.