Meridian Design Center

STAY AWAY from Merdian Design Center and Design Built, Inc. In mid-July, 2012, Yossie Ashkan Khomani from Meridian Design Center and Avry Mizrahi from Design Built, Inc. promised to have work in our apartment finished by the 31st of July, 2012. We dealt primarily with Mr. Khomani during this renovation process and yet he put down Mr. Mizrahi as our contractor on our contract without consulting with us first. On several occasions, Mr. Khomani tried to force us into designs by raising his voice (completely unprofessional). The workers came in for a few hours (maybe 3-4 hours tops) on weekdays in the beginning of the job, but soon, they simply STOPPED showing up. It turned out that Mr. Mizrahi and Mr. Khomani had received larger contracts and were blatantly ignoring the work in our home. When confronted about the situation (AFTER the promised finishing date of July 31st), Mr. Khomani blamed us for delaying the job rather than taking responsibility for his own actions. Mr. Khomani claimed that we had not chosen a toilet for our bathroom which was why it was unfinished. We had previously bought a 12 inch toilet from the Meridian Design Center but that one did not fit anymore because the tile work of Mr. Khomani’s workers had made our wall 1.5in too thick. We wanted Mr. Khomani to fix this mistake but he instead wanted to force us into buying a 10-inch rough toilet that was more expensive and had an unattractive design. One of Mr. Khomani’s workers had told me that they had simply neglected to knock down our plumbing wall (where their tile work finally went) to check for water damage and such. Their reason had been that “it was too much work.” Instead, they had layered new cement on top of the old cement of our wall and made the tile wall too thick. Meanwhile, an electrical circuit had been ignored and left completely exposed in my son’s bathroom, parts of the floor had not been sanded, the shower elbow had been incorrectly installed, etc… The bottom line is that these people will be very friendly in the beginning, making verbal promises that they won’t keep, and after you have signed the contract, they will do whatever they see fit. Rather than admitting that they verbally agreed to 7/31/2012 as the finishing date, Mr. Khomani and his partner Mr. Mizrahi are now telling us to look at our contract says “30-45 days” finishing time. They made us trust their persuasive words, leading us into signing a contract for something different. They even ignored our requests to have our house key returned (we had to change locks!) I wish I could turn back time and never even have made eye contact with such people.

Everything went extremely well and all the items I ordered came in on time and worked perfectly with what I needed.

I purchased mosiac with this Meridian Design Center around Feb 2011 for a bathroom remodel. The tiles are actually beautiful; however, I would not recommend this company to a friend and will not use them ever again and here's why. The mosiac tiles I purchased were over ordered. Yes, the mosiac tiles were a special order subject to specific terms and conditions - which I FULLY UNDERSTAND. This is not the issue. The issue is that several weeks ago my contractor called Nanette, the employee assisting us at Meridian Kitchen, to let her know we had extra mosiac and to see if we could return them. Nanette said YES minus a 35% re-stocking fee and even made a call to the mosiac tile company to confirm this. Based on this information, I drove the following Saturday to Meridian Kitchen and Nanette was not there on this day, so I spoke with Yossie who told me these tiles were not returnable and there was nothing he could do and that Nanette would contact me the following Monday and handle this. Two weeks later I had not heard from Nanette, so I emailed her on 4/5/11. I still didn't hear anything, so I re-sent my email today 4/6/11. I then received a call from Yosi at 9PM the same night. Yossie told me that Nanette has been out of the office, which is why she had not responded. I had no way of knowing this because there was no out of the office auto responder set up. I explained the issue to Yoseie just as I did above and also explained that I did not want to post on Yelp, BBB, to receive a resolution to this matter, etc., and is why I went directly to trying to contact Meridian Kitchen first to make an effort to resolve this issue directly first. That was not a threat - simply a statement of fact. Yossie continued to refer to the contract and stated that if I'd posted on Yelp, he would just send them the contract I signed. I know there is a contract, but Nanette stated after the fact that the mosiac was returnable; therefore this no longer is a contract issue, and is now an employee issue. The company is responsible for their employees and for their training. I asked for $100 credit as a gesture of good faith for my time that I took to load the heavy tiles into my car, drive over there, gas (i'd never ask for gas money but at $4/gallon, eek). I would have never went over there or never even thought about returning the extra mosiac tiles if Nanette hadn't told us it were possible. I was really just looking for the smallest gesture of good faith showing me that he knew his employee mest up and he was going to take responsibility. Not only did Yossie not take responsibility and try to make the customer happy, but he continued to harass and threaten me via email. Yossie called me and asked me to put the resolution I sought per our phone call the following evening in writing to him and he would run it past the store owner, Rachel. So in writing, I asked for a $100 credit to my account, which I don't think is too much to ask for since I spent $5,000 with them. I received the response below and was saddened to say that this company would allow a manager to speak to and/or interact with their customers who have spent $5,000 this way. "jen i am sorry to say we dont want to deal with people of your character and believe me we will not give you any credits at all for trying to black mail against negative reviews. I was in touch with yelp and they are investigating your account i have already submitted all legal documents to them. Any further derogatory remark or defimation of character towards meridian design center in any means shall bring you severe damages and legal actions; so govern yourself accordingly and consult with legal counsel before you let any more fingers of yours do any more false reports,allegation or bashings. You just seem like the person who is looking for free bees and leaching off businesses." A few things - 1) I never stated anything derogatory against their company - everything written is 100% fact. I'd be happy to prove it as I have everything in writing. 2) I did not black mail them - I simply stated a fact that I wanted to work this out with them first and hope that they would consider a resolution prior to going to third parties such as the BBB, Yelp, RipOffReport, The Attorney General, etc. to help me get resolve to this issue. 3) You can not threaten legal action against an individual for using online services to post reviews. 4) To threaten me with legal action so that I don't post online is blackmail. 5) "You just seem like the person who is looking for free bees and leaching off businesses." <-- Funny! Why would I pay them $5,000.00 and be looking for free bees? That just doesn't make sense.

I had such a terrible experience with this company and would not recommend them to anyone. The sad thing is that the store manager, Yossie, could have easily fixed the issue to make me happy, but instead he threatened me and made this all worse. I can not believe that whoever owns this store would allow a manager to treat a customer this way who spent $5,000.00. By the way, I was the easiest customer ever. I went in the store, maybe spent 1/2 hour with Nanette, their sales associate and picked out all of my tiles and that was it! Easiest sale they every made. I purchased mosiac with this Meridian Design Center around Feb 2011 for a bathroom remodel. The tiles are actually beautiful; however, I would not recommend this company and will not use them ever again and here's why. The mosiac tiles I purchased were over ordered. Yes, the mosiac tiles were a special order subject to specific terms and conditions - which I FULLY UNDERSTAND. This is not the issue. On 3/25/11, my contractor called Nanette, the employee assisting us at Meridian Kitchen, to let her know we had extra mosiac tiles and to see if we could return them. Nanette said YES minus a 35% re-stocking fee and even made a call to the mosiac tile company to confirm. Based on this information, I drove to Meridian that Saturday 3/26/11 to return the tiles, but Nanette was not there. I spoke with Yossie who told me these tiles were not returnable and there was nothing he could do and that Nanette would contact me the following Monday to handle this. By Tuesday 4/5/11, I had not heard a word from Nanette or Meridian so I sent her an email. I still didn't hear anything, so I called the store the next day only to be told she was not in. I asked for the email of the manager of the store and re-sent the email that I'd previously sent to Nanette copying the store manager. At 9PM that evening, I received a call from Yossie who told me that Nanette has been out of the office, which is why she had not responded to me. I had no way of knowing this because there was no "out of the office" auto responder set up for her informing me of such. During the call, I explained the issue to Yossie just as I did above and also explained that I did not want to post on Yelp, BBB, etc and that I would enlist the services of these 3rd parties if a resolution was not reached by working with him directly. This was not a threat, simply a transparent statement of fact putting all of my cards on the table. Yossie was not really receptive. He just kept referring to the contract and stated that if I'd posted on Yelp, he would just send them the contract I signed and that they would remove my review. I know there is a contract, but I signed the contract in Feb 2011. Nanette stated on 3/25/11 that the mosiac was returnable; therefore this no longer is a contract issue, and is now an employee issue. The company is responsible for their employees and for their training. On 4/6/11 during our phone call, I requested $100 credit as a gesture of good faith for my time that I took to load the heavy tiles into my car, drive over there, gas (over $4/gal). I would have never went over there or never even thought about returning the extra mosiac tiles if Nanette hadn't stated it were possible. Yossie stated he could not provide any credit. Update 4/8/11: Yossie called me again on 4/7/11, and asked me to provide the resolution I sought in an email to him, which he already knew was a $100 credit for all of the trouble they caused me. He responded that he could give me a $100 coupon for the future. I responded the next day 4/8/11, that I did not accept this resolution. Then Yossie became combative, threatening and harassing when I did not accept his resolution asking again for a credit. It makes me sad to see that this is how they treat someone that spent $5,000 with them. I am a very transparent person and is why I'm pasting Yossie's email below to me because if you have any issue and try to address it with this company, note that this is the type of response you might receive below. "jen i am sorry to say we dont want to deal with people of your character and believe me we will not give you any credits at all for trying to black mail against negative reviews. I was in touch with yelp and they are investigating your account i have already submitted all legal documents to them. Any further derogatory remark or defimation of character towards meridian design center in any means shall bring you severe damages and legal actions; so govern yourself accordingly and consult with legal counsel before you let any more fingers of yours do any more false reports,allegation or bashings. You just seem like the person who is looking for free bees and leaching off businesses." In my response to his email: 1. Telling a company you are going to post a review is not blackmail - it's just stating the facts. Further, you can not tell any individual they will face legal action for posting their experience with your company. 2. "Any further derogatory remark or defimation of character towards meridian design center in any means shall bring you severe damages and legal actions" - there is not 1 derogatory remark or defimation that I put online. All is factual information and Yossie should point out specifics before he goes to this level. 3. Yossie states "You just seem like the person who is looking for free bees and leaching off businesses." - If I wanted free bees, why would I have spent $5,000 of my money on tiles with them?

One item was incomplete (shower head missing from trim kit) and the other item - an essential one/toilet and seat - was never received. Company refuses to give credit after several phone calls. They did try to give my contractor a toilet out of the box that had been left outside and was filthy. I am disputing the charge with my credit card company since I it has been about a month and I have not received a credit for the missing items.