Park West Gallery
Reviews and Complaints
Misleading
Me and my husband cruise often we finally decided, to peek in on a art auction and purchased The first Child by Pino.
Beautiful pierce of art. Love it by was mislead.
We where told that the piece was never touch by anyone beside Pino and it was on he had in is own collection, and told us the appraised value so we where exited about collecting this piece of art.
Received the Art and it was not the one that was promised to us, so I called... I was then advised we don't give you the piece of ship we send on to you from the office(warehouse) but they advise no worries it still has the same appraised value.
Ok!
So I left it alone to find out it was not appraised at the value I was told, at this time it was too late to send the piece back.
I misplaced my appraised paper work and had to request a copy for my insurance and they send me a new one that was 7,000 under the value they advised me it was I have both papers the one I lost and the one I received when I got the art from Park west. This is how I learned that I was being ripped off. At this point I had already bought 2 more Pino's and one was still being ship so I returned it and still lost money on the return but they are not getting no more from me.
A+ credit ruined by Synchrony Bank/Park West Gallery
After ordering several paintings on numerous cruises, we ordered two more to be framed identical and the matting to be enlarged to make up the size difference. When the first one came, I immediately called and asked how they were going to do that, without them side by side, and was assured the next one would be okay.
The next one came the next month and was not okay. We were offered the choice of sending them back and getting them fixed or them sending the frames and matting, with us fixing it local (which we did). During this time, they started the payments with the first delivery, even though it was not right. I called and told them I would pay in full, when the paintings were actually right.
I was bounced back and forth from Synchrony Bank to Park West, with both saying they didn't have control over the other and Park West didn't work for the Bank. We eventually got late charges that I refused to pay, but we paid in full for the Art. I called again and again, trying to get this resolved, to no avail. It has gone on our credit report and ruined our credit, because they kept adding late charge to late charge.
We can't even get any other credit cards now, because of this. When I have time again, I will take this to an attorney, because obviously your credit rating is worth a lot.
I will not be buying from them again and I will certainly spread the word, that if you apply for financing on the ship, it is Synchrony Bank-however the Bank says they don't work for them. (?)
Preferred solution: Change the charge off on my Credit Report from Synchrony Bank/Park West Gallery.
Scam Artist Gallery should be their name
They tout a 40 day cancellation and refund policy, but I have been waiting for over a month to get my refund. I cancelled a couple of orders that I put on a cruise one week after I got home, and I have been waiting for more than a month, with no refund.
They put my order on hold but they have yet to credit back the amount minus their charge to my credit card. The service representative keeps saying it takes time. I requested a call from a service manager... they never called.
I don't think there is another company out there that hangs on to one's money like this company. It is ridiculous.
- Customer service and how they treat clients
Preferred solution: Full refund
Wrong frame, split frame, defective artwork, and worst customer service
Purchased 3 pieces of art on cruise in JUL 2017. Received shipment at the end of AUG.
1. PW shipped one painting in wrong color frame and at first acted like I was to blame. When they discovered their mistake they send "oh well..." Not the way to treat polite customers, who are only trying to get what they paid for. Returned that painting and still have received no status updates on this project.
2. Other painting (see photo) has split frame at all four corners. Three small and one huge gap. Whiet dot inside plexiglass grame and fraying on the serigraph itself.
Contacted PW and they sent a garbled voicemail and generic email that someone would be getting in touch soon. Nothing 2 weeks later. 3.
Requested full refund today. I'll be posting in social media forums like this and with Royal Caribbean until I hear back from them.
- Service onboard the ship
- Nice pieces of artwork
- Sales people were nice
- Defective artwork
- Non customer service
- Late delivery
Preferred solution: Full refund
Excellent service
I was recently on the Sun Princess and paid a visit to the Park West Gallery. The staff Henry, Bruce and Ian were so professional and very knowledgeable.
Henry Bruce and Ian are friendly and easy to talk with. They were all veru helpful and could answer any question asked of them. I bought my first Peter Max, thank you Henry. I also added to my Thomas Kinkade collection.
I highly recommend Park West if you need anything to do with ART.
I can not speak more highly of the team from the Sun Princess gallery, thank you for such a wonderful experience. Regards, David and Joy.
- Service
- Artwork on board the ship
- Sales staff
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Verified Reviewer | Southfield, MichiganNever Again!
After the so called "auction", I discovered there's a 12 week delivery time. I called customer service several weeks after the end of my cruise & was told my order was still not "manually" entered in their system.
I suggested they update their system to the 21st century and digitally process their sales. The agent said that she would pass my suggestion on to management. Don't hold your breath... Their stall tactics are deliberate; making it more difficult to dispute your credit card purchase.
My experience with Park West is disappointing. Although their name is an attempt to conjuring images of a high-end art gallery on the upper West side of NYC; it is far from it.
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution
Beware of the scam
Preferred solution: Full refund
DID NOT GET WHAT I ORIGINALLY SAW ON THE SHIP
THE SERIOLITOGRAPH IN COLOR ON PAPER I SAW ON THE SHIP WAS MUCH BRIGHTER AND NOT SO SHINY. REGISTRATION NO.182470.2238 BLOOM STEVE HIGH STAKES 2006.
MICHAEL HOITASH 11/4 DR. BIRAM STREET HAIFA 349**** ISRAEL I SAW IT ON THE CROWN PRINCESS CRUISE SHIP. I WAS VERY DISAPOINTERD, ON THE SHIP THEY TOLD US THAT WE GET THE SAME PICTURE . AND GOOD SERVICE.
I HOPE THAT YOU WILL CHANGE THE PICTURE FOR US. TO ENTER 100 WORDS I WILL WRITE: GOOD SERVICE,GOOD SERVICE,GOO SERVICE,GOOD SERVICE,GOOD SERVICE,GOOD SEVICE, YOU HAVE SENT THE PICTURE TO ME 324 TREMONT STREET NEWTON MA 02458 REG#182470.2238
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution
Park West Lost my Artwork!
I purchased an original piece (one of a kind) at a Park West event in Chicago in April 2016. The piece has been in layaway and I have paid 21 of the 24 payments due.
Received a call last night from their Sales Department stating they "don't have my artwork anymore". WHAT???? I asked what happened and he said he wasn't sure, he was just told to call me and tell me they were sorry but wouldn't be sending me my artwork once I made the additional 3 payments. I asked why he was telling me he didn't know what happened.
He said sometimes these pieces "get lost" or are damaged. I believe they sold it to someone else and don't want to admit it. I am livid as this was a one-of-a-kind piece and can't be replaced.
Giving me my money back isn't acceptable at this point. I will never go business with Park West again and I urge everyone else not to also.
- Artwork
- Customer service sucks
- Lack of product delivery
- Still have defective artwork that needs repaired
Preferred solution: I want proof that this piece was damaged (photo of it) as I believe it was sold to someone else and they don't want me to know that.
DeRubeis Lighthouse
On our very first cruise back in 2016, and our very first encounter with PWG, we purchased a number of items. One happened to be The Lightouse by Chris DeRubeis, which was not a small amount of money to buy.
Now this art piece was an individual artwork, as explained by the PWG aution team. We appreciated this, however, the artwork shown onboard the ship at teh time, and an image that of the same piece on teh PWG website showed a lighthouse with a bright illuminous light at the top of the structure. The piece we received, eventually, barely had a colour being shown at all. Practically no "light" shown at all.
Totally fdetracted from the "lighthouse" meaning. We immediately contacted PWG, to say how disappointed we were with the piece. From the beginning, they were extremely helpful. After numerous emails, and a small passing of time, we finally were able to ship the art back to PWG for the original artist to touch up the piece to resemble the display pieces (restore not replace).
However, after all the time taken to get the issue to the point to get the art back to PWG, it immediatly reappeared on our doorstep a week or so later, totally untouched. We again set out to have the piece worked on, with my wife actually contacting Chris by social media. He was quite helpful and said he would work on our artwork himself to bring it up to our expectations after seeing the photos of the item we had. Again, we were finally able to send back the piece at PWG's expense, after much frustration of little to no replies to emails, and no contact.
This time, a few weeks passed, only to have the art turn back up untouched. I regected the delivery from FedEX, which meant this was to return the delivery to PWG. Emails were sent again - with no replies. It has now come back to us for a third time, unchanged again.
We bougth this art work back in May 2016. We have tried many, many times to email information and chase the PWG person up.
Very, very disappointed, and will not be prepared to buy from the gallery until this issue is sorted. It is a huge shame, as we have bought quite a substantal quanity of art from PWG, with this being the only negative I can comment on, but the way it has been handled has left ashes in my mouth.
- Service onboard the ship
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution
Great experience on event December 14-17, 2017
Me and my husband attend a and event December 14-17, 2017 hosted by Parkwest gallery at the Breakers Palm Beach. What a great event it was!!!
John Block was the auctioner. But he was not just an auctioner (we'e been to a lot of Parkwest gallery auctions). He was a real MC. What a show he had put on!
He was knowlegeable, professional, great marketer and funny. Because of John we hd bought 5 paintings. Great show John! Katie Woodruff who organized the event was great.
The entire event went thru with no problem, smooth and professional. A big praise to the mentioned employees and their assistants!
All in all it was agreat event, and we would not mind to attend any Parkwest gallery in future. Sincerely Marina Shapoff & Igor Pavlovic
- We like parkwest gallery auctions
VERY UNPLEASED
Preferred solution: Full refund
How many lawsuits does it take...
- Fraudulent business practices
Preferred solution: Stop defrauding people.
Scam artists
I called a few days after we docked at home and cancelled the order. I was told they did not even have the order in the system, but they would give me a 15% voucher for the next cruise.
I said I did not want that, I wanted it cancelled an my money refunded. I received a voucher for the next cruise in the mail and I am still going to fight to get the entire amount refunded. cancelled because I could not find the "art" I ordered on their web site.
My next step will be to complain to Celebrity Cruises. I never received the art and they had the order, but kept part of my money
- Will not just cancel before they even have the order
- But keep a portion of your money
Preferred solution: Full refund
Park West Gallery Auctions - Anthem of the Seas
We recently returned from our cruise aboard RC's Anthem of the Seas. Not our first cruise, we were familiar with PWG's auctions and had some fond memories along with (4) of PWG's artwork hanging on our walls - all "mystery" pieces we opted to buy.
Times have changed and so have PWG's practices. Here's a review of our experience. We attended the 1st auction (2nd day of the cruise, a sea day) with a good attitude based on past experiences. It started off as usual: We registered, got our bid card and some extra tickets for the raffle box, and walked in to possibly "tag" some items we might be interested in.
Almost immediately one of the auctioneers goonies latched on to us and began grilling us with questions. Is this your first PW auction? (No) Is there anything particular you are interested in? (Possibly a Le Kinff) Do you like Peter Max?
(Yes) What was our price threshold? (Not looking to spend a lot of money) This continued for about 10 minutes as we walked around and browsed. As we were looking at a Peter Max the goonie asked if we were interested. We were and tagged the item.
I inquired about the price and the goonie pulled out a notebook, looked up the SKU and told me the "fair market price" followed by the opening bid and then something he called the "pre-bid" price. In addition, he showed us another artist who's work we liked. Pre-bid price? What's that.
He proceeded to explain we could pre-bid before the artwork hit the auction block and, as long as nobody out bid us, we could own the piece at a "substantial" savings. We declined to pre-bid. So the auction starts and I immediately pick up on the fact that "pre-bid" artwork that hits the block have unrealistic bid increments. For example, if the pre-bid price was $1200 (and the person who made the pre-bit raises their bid card) the next bid increment would be $1500 which made it near impossible for anyone else to challenge the original bidder.
Not much of an "auction" IMO. Seems like just an agreed upon sale price with some *** banging a hammer in the background for show. As we had previously done, we raised our bid cards for all the "mystery" items and even won one of the raffles for a free piece of artwork. In addition, we got (2) more free pieces of artwork for signing up for the Park West Collectors Card.
The goonie came over once during one of these "limited" mystery deals and tried to put some pressure on us ($5900 for a "one of a kind" Peter Max) but I blew him off. After the auction we setup a time in the evening to select the mystery paintings we wanted and (3) free pieces. We showed up at the gallery that evening and we were treated to the "used car salesman" pitch. They tried everything they could to close a bigger sale to the point that I was ready to just walk away.
We wanted a Peter Max but just couldn't swing their price tag. They wanted to sell us "museum quality" framing for $300+ for the other artwork but I told him we could get framing at our local supplier for half that cost. We ended up with just the (3) free pieces in a tube for $35. I can only imagine they hated us since at one point they asked my what "I" would pay for the Peter Max (at this point my wife shoots me a look since this is a classic car salesman tactic) so I told him I'd give him all the money in my pockets for it.
He looks at me with a nasty face and I say "ask a *** question, get a *** answer". At the next auction they put together a "mystery" package of (8) pieces of artwork, (2) from four different artists (including Peter Max) and again put pressure on us. I went back and forth with my wife about the $$'s and finally dropped the bid card on the floor in front of me and put my feet on it to show I was not bidding on it. The auctioneer stopped, pointed at my wife and said "I'll except a hand raise from you" since the bid card was out of her reach.
Wow. We made another appointment to view some of our mystery choices. The deal was picking (1) hand signed and numbered Ilyayev lithograph out of the three shown for $250. We really liked them and were considering getting (2) of them for $500.
Upon arrival we were immediately shown the (3) choices AND they had setup the identical three HAND-EMBELLISHED versions which we could have framed and delivered for the bargain price of $750 each - not a terrible deal and we were interested. The issue for us was the current frames didn't work where we would be hanging the artwork. I asked about changing the frames and was told that would be an additional charge of $200 (shipping to the framing facility and shipping from there to my home). I tried to haggle the price a bit and the head auctioneer wouldn't budge a dollar so we just walked away without buying anything else.
Upon returning home I started Googling some of the Peter Max's we were interested in and was not surprised to find that they could be purchased for about 30-35% less than offered by PWG's pre-bid pricing. Buyers be ware.
Do your due diligence if you have paid for a wi-fi package on board the ship. If not, be sure you REALLY are comfortable with the price you are paying for the artwork.
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I have bought several hundred thousands of dollars of art through Park West....not one piece is valued at what they said. At best I would get pennies on the dollar....argh...frustrated.