Photography Nightmare (opinions needed)

It's a tough one. The customer service you have received it obviously not good. When the album design was lost, he should have contacted you straight away to go through the process again. Yes there is the inconvenience but at least you would have known why there was a delay. Doctoring Graphi emails and forwarding them on to you is very dishonest.

Regarding the compensation, are you happy with the actual images that he delivered? Were these delivered in the time frame promised? Just trying to establish if the issues have been with the album design only.

On a side note, what type of main album are you having so I can judge whether that is expensive at £800 (if you want to know that)?

Sorry to hear this! I can understand your frustration!!

I don't think you are entitled to a full refund if you still get the images on disc, I think you deserve a refund of the cost of the albums if bought separately so for example if you paid him £1500 for photography, editing, images on a disc plus the albums and its only the albums you aren't getting, lets say there worth £500 then I think a refund of £500 at least, maybe an extra couple of hundred for the inconvenience. It's very annoying and frustrating but ultimately you still get the images. How much did you pay him? Xx

We've paid him £1200. We were supposed to be getting a Graphi Album, 40pg, pearlescent finish with the acrylic cover and two Graphi parent books. There is nothing in his contract regarding delivery schedule of the images. We are supposed to have full copy right of the images included as well. Thanks for the replies.

I can't believe he lead you on for so long! Shocking service if he just advised you he lost the design he could have resolved this months ago.

I too do not feel you are entitled to full compensation considering you have been provided withe the pics on a disc and I assume you must be satisfied with them to want an album made up with them in. I believe a court would agree with me if you decided to take it that far. (I work alongside trading standards so know a bit about this type of thing) I think you should accept the offer he made you or ask for a refund for the cost of the album.

Just to confirm we don't have high quality images. Only ones at a few mega pixels to allow us to choose our pics that were meant to go in the album

Well he needs to provide a disc with the full sized images then so you can print elsewhere! X

What was in your contract regarding high res images?

When you say design, does this mean the other Photographer will design it, send him the design and then he orders it? Or the partial refund was to cover the cost of the album that the other Photographer will order?

He will need to provide the full res files for this too. Has he said he will do this?

There is more here being untold...why would you lie about "losing" the design for months on end? That on its own just does not add up.....

If you do manage to get the high res files, ensure that you have a letter allowing full usage, not just reproduction rights.....

Peter

Just to add that your contract is worth dusting off now and bashing him on the head with it to trading standards......

If you feel that you want to email/message me the name of the tog, I will try to do an honest check....

Peter

Our contract was signed on line and the link we have on email no longer works so we are struggling a bit from that point of view, it was 2011 when we electronically signed it. We have emails confirming we will get the high res photo shopped images. The £800 is a price for the design and print work so the new photographer would supply the main album and two parent ones. He did say 600-800 but that he couldn't give and exact price without the images as he didn't know how much work was involved. There is a fair bit of photo shop work required in my opinion, shots have bright green fire exit signs in them for example and there are several group shots in the same place where there is a piece of rope hanging down the middle above our heads.

The way I'm looking at this is that we have paid him £1200, on the night he made several hundred selling images to our friends and family and we need 800 to make good of the situation and get a album. If he gives us the images full copy right and refunds us £800 to pay the new photographer he has made himself £800 approx for what I think would be fair to say shocking customer service.

Our main issue is the fact he has out right lied to us so long and the way we found out contacting Graphi ourselves. Why should we trust him and give him a second chance given the way he has conducted himself.

I'm reading this that you paid £1200 in total, with £800 for the album and £400 for the coverage?

Doesn't sound like a good deal. Cost price of the books is around £300.

What I would say is send me the details, price paid and more importantly who the photographer is. Email is as good as a contract. Keep them.

With regards the whole ethos of what's gone on....breathe.

The simple thing is the tog hasn't delivered the goods. You don't have any high res images, you don't have an album, you don't have the editing. £1200 for a 40 pager with 2 parent books is not a great price really. It's £100 under what I'd expect to see. I wouldn't round yourself up with them selling images on the night, honestly this will just wind you up thinking about it.

Graphi take 4-6 weeks to deliver and produce an order. So you've been lied to. All bets are off. Forget the album, get your images, edited or not. Pronto. Even if it means a house visit with a couple of mates. People can ignore emails, texts and phone calls. Not doorbells.

Also, if you really want to give them the benefit of the doubt, fake an enquiry, if they respond then you know they're stonewalling you. People swerve commitment sometimes by playing innocent so rule that out first.

It's unfortunate, togs do go rogue (like any supplier can). There's a guy my way who is still operating, isn't cheap either but didn't deliver an album to a couple. Bailiffs have been around there etc....now I'm designing their album instead.

Once you get the images leave them feedback wherever you can to highlight the problems you've had.

But don't delay.

Hi Chris, I don’t have break down of what we paid, it was a package deal that he did for £1200, this included a pre-wedding shoot so he could see how we interacted with him and the camera, then on the wedding day full attendance starting with the getting ready shots right through into the evening and first dance. He also did a guest book for us where he photographed our guests, printed the shoots at the venue stuck them into a scrap book type album which they then wrote their messages to us in. (we do have this). We were to receive a Graphi album, and two smaller parent books.

I am fully aware that he has lost 12 other couples albums as he has admitted this to me so in terms of dealing with him further he was a nightmare last year and this year he has all his current 2013 weddings to process plus these 12 he’s going to have to re do. I don’t know how many hours work there is editing and compiling an album but I would guess at a couple of days? He’s just never going to be able to cope in my opinion with the work load.

He has shut down his studio, when I visited last week when I was trying to get hold of him I asked a neighbouring shop keeper if he knew anything as to what was going on with him and he informed me several people have been looking for him.

Just to clarify the £800 I have mentioned is the cost a different photographer has quoted me as worst case scenario to edit and produce an album for us. Based on what you’ve said this means his costs would be £300 for the printing then £300-£500 for labour. You would expect it to cost more when trying to remedy someone else’s work and I suppose he has to build in an additional margin to cover himself.

I will email you the photographer’s details this evening, thanks for your comments.

Ok right it's a lot clearer now.

I'd press for the Raw, unedited files. They'll have those and it'll fit across 5 DVD's. If you put it to them you'll accept those 'then go away' any sane person in difficulty will bite your hand off.

If they don't, they possibly don't have them any more.

Now I've seen who it is I would recommend you go around and ask for the unedited files.

If you don't have their address then put their web address into http://www.whois.com/whois/

It should be current as they updated it in Feb this year.

This is purely based on the quality of their website, facebook postings and the studio closure. As time moves on people care less about things. Including the space on their hard drive containing your photos.

When people get into debt or have problems they become lethargic and everything loses importance. If they've given up then they will be focusing on other things.

That is truly awful, I do hope you get something sorted soon! I had a problem once when I photographed my bosses wedding. A little easier since I knew them, but I was really scared. But being upfront and honest will help someone a lot more than lying to someone. That's just wrong. TBH, I'd've been round there long before now. Good luck xx