A tattoo artist is forced to refund an unhappy customer after he claims she inked her nipple and didn’t follow his design while he was distracted
- The tattoo artist was ordered to pay thousands
- An unhappy customer took her to NTCAT
- She was accused of nipple inking
A tattoo artist was forced to cough up thousands of dollars after she was painfully inked on a man’s nipple, a court heard.
Frankie Berto won a refund and paid $1,150 in damages after Darwin Lilly Inc. owner Leah Kathleen Tellini took to NT civil and administrative court last year.
Berto claimed the 35-year-old cost him $1,600 to tattoo a lion’s head of his own design onto his torso — but when the wounds healed, he saw “big mistakes” in her work.
He said he was not completely satisfied with the service claiming it changed 80 percent of the original design while he was distracted on the job.
“During the two-hour tattoo session, the respondent was constantly interrupted by multiple phone calls and a child ran into the studio,” said Mr Berto.
Frankie Berto said he had specifically discussed before the session started that tattoo artist Leah Tellini would leave the nipple area alone because it was a very sensitive part of the body (pictured is the tattoo done by Darwin artist)
Berto claimed Mrs. Tellini cost him $1,600 to tattoo a lion’s head of his own design (pictured) onto his torso — but when the wounds healed, he saw “major mistakes” in her work
He added that he did not approve of her doing the manual design.
“I experienced severe pain while tattooing and later realized that the respondent had tattooed my nipples.”
He said they had discussed before the session began that she would leave the nipple area alone because it is a very sensitive part of the body.
He added, “During the recovery period, I discovered significant errors compared to the original tattoo design.”
He said he tried to reschedule her to fix the errors but she “willfully ignored” the requests so he had to ask for a refund.
NTCAT senior member Andrew McCreadys ordered Mrs. Tellini to pay the full refund and assign Berto another $1,150 to fix it.
Makrides said he had no reason to doubt the accuracy of Berto’s claims, and agreed that Tellini had not responded to his attempts to correct his “bad tattoo service”.
He said it failed to fix tattoo errors and correct its breach of consumer warranties.
The tattoo artist did not file a response and was not present in court.
Meanwhile, Tellini refutes Berto’s claims that they agreed to avoid her nipple area and that he didn’t want her to do free-hand styles.
‘He was fine with tattooing part of the nipple even though there was no evidence of that conversation,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
“And he agreed for me to do free hand patterns.”
The mother-of-six said the couple discussed inking the tattoo with a stencil as well as her free hand, something she did more than 50 times in her five-year career.
She added, “A friendly chat was held while sitting outside the studio, once the session was over there were no issues.”
Mr. Berto said he tried to reschedule a time for Ms. Tellini to fix the mistakes but she deliberately ignored the requests so he had to demand a refund (pictured, a tattoo after it was completed by another artist)
The mother-of-six said the couple discussed inking the tattoo with a stencil as well as her free hand, something she’d done more than 50 times in her five-year career (pictured, Ms. Tellini’s free handiwork).
He was even talking excitedly about his second session.
She said he had to be rescheduled to complete the job because he was in too much pain to continue.
Ms. Tellini said she did not ignore his text messages but alleged he was angry that he had not been able to meet with her at the time he was in town.
She admitted that she might have been interrupted by changing the music at “a point or two” during the date but refused any children entry to the store.