First Impression Consulting

This place is ridiculous. The reviews say it all. I think the court debacle recently mentioned in one of the reviews was the reason JC was not present for a scheduled meeting with me. That was only ONE of the several times that he didn’t show up. Total catastrophe, but it gives me a great story to tell at parties.
NOTE: There is also a shady double profile here:
A terrible first and last impression.

«A terrible impression» is what they should call this company. The customer service was awful and I agree with the reviews on Unilocal concerning this company. I cannot believe how badly they treated my wife and I and I am very disappointed with the service I received. If you want to pay for bad service upfront and want to over pay for your upholstery to get done while being treated like dirt then you will be in for a ride with this company.
Here is what we experienced…
My wife and got a beautiful glider that we wanted to reupholster before the birth of our first child. When we arrived at A First Impression we were treated pretty well and the sales associate was polite. We had the original coverings for our pillows and arm rests and we found a fabric we liked. We had a seat cushion, back cushion, and two arm rest pads that priced out to over $ 350 dollars. We were told it would take 2 weeks for the job to be done but that it would most likely be done in one week. They also threw in an accent cushion as a bonus, which we thought was great.
Two weeks passed and we called and the sales associate who told us the fabrications shop was slammed and that they would let us know when the job was completed. Another week passed ad we heard nothing and after calling them they told us that the work would be completed within the next week. At this point a month had passed since we originally paid for our job to be done. We finally went in to pick up the cushions — no apologies from the manager who argued with us that the job was only a few days late, which was not true because we had the original work order with us. At first everything looked alright with the exception that the accent pillow was not made for us like they promised. They agreed to finish the pillow. When we got home we discovered that there had been two errors with the arm rest pads because they were not measured correctly (even though they had the originals) and the snap on buttons did not fit.
We went back to A First Impression on that Saturday and they apologized and they said they would fix it right away by Monday. A week passed without hearing anything from them and we contacted the sales associate who helped us at first. She told us she would check on the job and would get back to us the following day but never did.
Finally after 3 weeks my wife and I thought we would stop by and check on the job. Not only had it not been completed but they quickly did the job in 5 minutes in the back and brought out our arm rests full of dust. The fabric was clearly dirty and we talked to the manager about it who said, «This sort of thing should not happen». Not once did he or the sales associate apologize, INSTEAD THEY ARGUED WITH US. We asked them about the accent pillow, which still had not been completed and somehow it had miraculously disappeared. We complained about having to drive back and forth and about the terrible customer service and the manager ended up telling us that we showed them the wrong place to make the adjustments, as if we were the professionals and it was all our fault. After raising voices and getting yelled at by the manager for making a big deal about a couple of cushions we decided to leave completely unhappy and unsatisfied.
If you are looking for people who don’t care about taking care of customers and want you to pay upfront for a bad experience then you have found the right place. Good luck if you want to get something done on time and with good service!

We planned to have our couches reupholstered so we went there and looked at many fabrics. We found 1 that we liked and requested a sample of it. We were told that only the designer could bring it to us. We asked questions about a possible fabric discount. Then we spent a lot of time looking at pieces that they had finished and finally left. We were told that the designer would call us when the fabric came in. That was after our February visit there. We never heard from anyone. After reading the reviews today, I feel that they did us a huge favor. They are unprofessional and rude.

BEWARE!!! This is the absolute, most DISHONEST, UNPROFESSIONAL, UNSKILLED upholstery company in California!
BEWARE, DO NOT SIGN FOR ANYTHING UNTIL YOU HAVE FULLY INSPECT THE MERCHANDISE INSIDE OUT.
The Managing Sales team purposely instructs the delivery drivers to deliver your merchandise late to frustrate you. If you do not have the time to inspect the merchandise from the outside as well as the inside, refuse the delivery. My merchandises were scheduled to arrive between 10 AM to 2 PM. The delivery guy, Michael, arrived at 4:30 PM. The driver asked us to sign a receipt slip before he can bring the furniture inside the house! We had to leave for a 5 PM WORK, dinner appointment and my husband signed for it so we can be on our way. BIG mistake! When we finally inspect it, it was a nightmare and A First Impression refused to talk to us! Additionally, their warranty deed agreement is bogus! They have no intention of honoring it.
I had an antique settee sofa, armchair and ottoman re-​upholstered and the workmanship is HORRIFIC!!! I paid approximately $ 5000.00 for the job. The sewing seams were crooked and misaligned; cheap polyester fibers were used in the pillows; buttons were sewn off center, folded pleats were missed in the sewing process, welt cording was not cut or sewn correctly. The sofas were lumpy and grossly puckered like old furniture, due to unskilled workmanship.
I got 2^nd and 3^rd opinions from other prestigious and local upholsterers calling the work «INFERIOR and UNPROFESSIONALLY DONE — a full refund should be in order». A First Impression refused to re-​do or refund my $$$ (approximately 5K). This is the MOST DISREPUTABLE and DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH company I have ever had the misfortune to work with. I sincerely hope everyone will take my warning, along with the other ones here, very seriously.
BEWARE ALSO THE SALES TEAM of A First Impression. Talia Gross (sales consultant), Michael (?) (Floor sales Mgr) and Jaycee Sterling (Production Mgr). THEY WORK AS A GROUP TO SCAM YOU! THEY REFUSED TO GIVE ME THE OWNER’S PHONE # OR THE PHONE # TO THE CORPORATE OFFICE. These people only want to make money for their company, A First Impression, and A First Impression appears to employ or contract with unprofessional and unskilled upholsters, drivers, production workers, quality control assurance. The owner of this company should be ashamed of his/​her business ethics and conducts.
If any one has any ideas how to get the right (legal) people to investigate A First Impression, I would love to hear back from them.

Not only did the company not give me back my money but in a very petty effort, they had another Unilocal user log in and post some mixed up version of my review about them into my professional profile, sighting that I had helped someone in real estate and did all kinds of horrible things. Thankfully, Unilocal filtered out this review so it is not directly affecting me but if you read the filtered review from 2011 on my professional profile and my review here on Unilocal for this business, First Impressions, you will see a completely jumbled up version of my review for an upholstery company, set into my reviews for being a Realtor, it doesnt even make sense.
The couches look horrible and even though they said they have a lifetime warranty on the cushions, based on their immature behavior, I’d be afraid to bring them back for warranty because I dont trust what might occur. What could they do do damage me further?
Forums like Unilocal are places where consumers can state their perspective but if you never worked with me professionally, logging onto my profile and blatantly lying about having ANY experience with me is a very HORRIBLE thing to do. Your person that posted that never met with me, never talked to me, never worked with me professionally.

I hope you read this before you consider using this
company. They have the worst customer service I’ve ever dealt with.
Rather than write a long explanation of my frustration with my order of recovering two small chair cushions, that I was told would take no more than 2 days from the time they received the material. It took 8 days. I asked for a discount on my balance and Robert (who was the company mgr.) said he didn’t have the authority to give me a discount. He said it would have to come from (corporate). Give me a break, this is one fairly small upholstery shop. I rest my case… stay away from this business

DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS DISREPUTABLE AND DISHONEST AND SHABBY COMPANY!!! YOU WILL BE SORRY. If there were zero stars I too would have selected that option. Oh if only I had read Unilocal before dealing with A First Impression and Jaycee Sterling, the onsite manager (not the owner, refused to give me the owner’s name or ph #), Bryn, a so-​called ‘designer’ and Robert, another mgr who apparently reports to Jaycee. I made the mistake of reading the website before ordering a Groupon worth $ 150 of work, thinking that the testimonials were true. I started this process of ordering a couch cover replacement in March 2012 and here it is November 2012 and still the problems go on. I could write a book of all the on-​going problems with this company, I had to involve Groupon who refunded me my $ the very same day I complained to them regarding this HORRIBLE company. I also had to involve Visa after Robert said they would fix all the problems and then said Jaycee told him he would be handling everything and then proceeded to refuse to take my calls, refused to call me back and refused to respond to my numerous emails. Only once Visa got him on the phone (after he told them he would call be back the same day and didn’t) did he call me, with Visa on the phone. I refuse to do any further business with this AWFUL company and am taking my couch cover as a loss. He spent 40 minutes arguing why he never called or emailed me back, saying my stated problems were not real, were ridiculous. He said he did call me back, did email me back but he never did. I have a trail of emails with photos going all the way back to April proving what they agreed to do and all the excuses and delays and defensiveness. I have never dealt with such extremely poor service and the couch cover is a mess. If you do business with this company after reading all these posts, you are a fool and I’ve not done my job to warn you off of these folks who are NOT in ANY way, shape or form a business you want to deal with. I am not some disgruntled person who has a grudge. I am a highly dissatisfied customer who could not get anyone at this horrible company to honor their agreement and paid-​for services. May this company go out of business soon so no one else has to suffer. My next move is small claims court and informing the Better Business Bureau.

My mistake was no taking into account people’s reviews. This is probably THE WORST company I’ve ever had to deal with. In a nutshell:
Had an entire bedroom set in need of a refinish (wood color to black lacquer). JAYCEE (project manager and boss. I think) quoted me on a 2 – 3 weeks (tops) job. Here I am writing this review, 3 MONTHS LATER, and today they have finally delivered. But that’s not the worst part .
They kept on delaying the order saying «we saw something on the furniture which we didn’t like, so we are re-​doing everything again» about 4 times. That excuse got so old, I was way pass the point of laughing. But Jaycee didn’t care. He got rude, defensive, and argued (upon the first delivery) that THAT was the best I would get. ON TOP OF THAT, he said they would not even cut down the price. It was let known to me by the driver that if I wouldn’t pay upon delivery, they would not be allowed to even bring the furniture. I started taping every phone conversation I had with them, because it became obvious this would lead to a small-​court lawsuit.
One of their drivers ended up leaving, but before doing so, he admitted to me (recorded) that the company is a mess, that I wasn’t the only customer getting completely screwed over, and that indeed, Jaycee is a jerk in the way he handles customers.
BASICALLY: CLIENT IS ALWAYS WRONG (specially if he’s getting screwed BIG TIME by them).
Today they delivered the furniture set. 3 MONTHS LATER, 100 EXCUSES LATER, and upon requesting it, with a $ 150 deduction (which on a $ 1500 bill, that’s A JOKE).
NEVER NEVER NEVER hire this company for anything. They have HORRIBLE customer service, at the end of the day the furniture looks «okay» (if not slightly cheaply done), and you will have NO IDEA what or when to expect everything to be done.
Before even considering hiring them, I will suggest you contact me personally and I will happily send you the audio files of the most embarrassing and frustrating conversations I’ve had the pleasure to have with everyone who claims to be «in charge» in that company.
One sample:
ME: «You guys already said for the 10^th time you were delivering this Saturday! Driver never even bothered to call to stand me up, and now he calls 5 hours later to say he’s not showing up because ‘he saw something –for the millionth time– on the furniture he didn’t like and therefore isn’t delivering». really???“
JAYCEE: «Hmm, I saw nothing on the furniture that was wrong. I think the driver is lazy and just doesn’t want to deliver today»
— driver ended up NOT delivering that day. On top of that, they dropped the furniture and it all got scratched. Job had to be redone, and it pushed everything yet another week into the 3^rd month. I only got a deduction for $ 150, which doesn’t even cover the mess the drivers did when bringing in the furniture (chips on the walls, nails scratches on the wooden floors, black paint scratches on the ceiling).
NEVER — HIRE — THEM … please, contact me first.

Take the one star nightmares as warnings… I would rather go to the dentist and have my gums graphed again then ever to deal with this «company» in my future.
My roommates and I needed to replace one Ikea couch cushion, after one consult over the phone I went in with both cushions (mind you this is about a 20 min drive from where I live) to make sure they could match them. JC told us it was an easy fix and one cushion would cost around 70 $. We decided to purchase two so both cushions would be made of the same material. We agreed I would pick up both cushions the next day, @ around 10am.
We agreed to pay that day, and as they were splitting the bill on two cards, they accidentally charged 700 $+ dollars onto my roommates card, instead of 70 $. Mistake, yes, costly for the customer, very. We received an apology and nothing else.
The next day I again drove 20 min to pick up both cushions, I arrived around 1p, 3 hours after the cushions were promised to be completed. THEY HADN’T EVEN STARTED THEM. They promised to do a rush and I sat in the office for an hour while they tried frantically to complete even one piece of foam. In order to not be late for work I had to leave, with only one cushion complete. I left them the dry cleaned covers to put over the second cushion when complete and left.
When my roommates again drove back the next day they picked up the cushion and returned home to find it was a completely different size. They cut foam to fit one of the smaller covers, instead of sticking to their measurements and sizes that were specified on my receipt and that would match the first cushion.
Upon calling the store and asking for a manger I spoke with Michael who was very abrupt and tried to blame me for not leaving just one cover.
A few days later I had to drive a FOURTH time to Simi Valley with both cushions and my receipt, Michael was there and was neither apologetic nor helpful and tried to tell me I would have to leave them and come back another day. It was only after presenting my receipt with payment and measurements and stating, once again, this was my 4^th trip, one of the designers stepped in, took my cushions to the back, begged the men in the workshop to rush mine ahead of their projects and had a new one ready in 30 minutes.
My waiting time in the office Michael was unprofessional talking ill and rude about customers, and never addressing me again. I never received another apology nor was ever offered a discount or refund for my absolute horrible, unprofessional or dismally irresponsible customer treatment (I cannot address this as service).
I will be shocked if they are still in business by the end of the year. I would have been better off going to preschool, placing a piece of foam in front of the children and letting them run amuck with scissors and Elmer’s glue.
Still hoping I wake up from this and am getting new gums sewn on instead.

I have to say I’m surprised by the negative reviews A First Impression has received.
They repaired a chest of drawers for me. The lower structure was made of a few pieces of wood using a joinery — really well made but challenging to repair. One of the legs split lengthwise and was no longer usable. I contacted the manufacturer and they wanted a fortune for the replacement part. So I decided to take a risk and go with a local shop. I was referred to A First Impression by a third party. I called them up and explained what I needed. They provided an estimate ranging between $ 150 to $ 300, depending on time and materials. They came to my home and picked my dresser up. Michael, the driver, was very friendly and arrived on time. A few days later the shop called to tell me the repair would be done by this weekend and that the total price would be $ 270 for the repair. Considering they had to find matching wood and custom fit it to match the rest of the piece, I felt that this was a very fair price. Especially when considering it also included delivery.
Michael returned with my dresser today and the repair was well done. The wood finish matches, the dresser sits level, and the fitment looks good.
I’m very pleased with A First Impression.

BEWARE! Do not use this place. I hope no one has to EVER go through what I did.
JC tried to get more money from me and ignored my original invoice/​quote. I was quoted a price have my outdoor furniture cushions reupholstered. I went to pick up my cushions and JC was helping me. JC told me I owed more than I was quoted and that I had to pay for 3 more cushions. I had already given JC my credit card also. JC REFUSED to give me back my credit card. Finally, after getting my credit card back JC went to my truck to check to see how many cushions I had. JC THREW MY CUSHIONS out of my truck, onto the ground in the parking lot, and refused to pick them up! I loaded them back into my truck and went into the store to pay. Finally, Robert helped me. He said «I don’t know what JC’s problem is, but he’s crazy». As a customer, I was yelled at by JC, my brand new furniture cushions were thrown out of my truck and onto the ground and JC refused to give me back my credit card! Unless you want to be treated HORRIBLY, DO NOT USE THIS PLACE!!!
One more thing… WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD THEY CONTINUE TO EMPLOY SOMEONE LIKE JC THERE???

This place has been around for years. Even before moving to MOORPARK I have used some of their designers and always happy with the quality of service the reps provide. I just picked up a piece of furniture that I had redone and my leather chair looks good as new. I would recommend a first impression for home Decorator and furniture repair!