Not Received Goods - Paid for 1 year ago!

rinefitz

Hi I was looking for some advice, got married Aug 07 - seems sooo long ago. Right we hired a Wedding DVD guy to film our wedding. In all it cost £795. We paid a deposit up front and on the day a lovely chap came and did a great job of filming and was very pleasant. Before Christmas I was told the proof was ready but full payment was needed. On Jan 5th 2008 full payment was made. I then asked if he could put proof in post. 'No problem', weeks went by and everytime I rang I was told he'd posted it. I then asked again and he said he'd resent special delivery. Again nothing, so in March 08 I travelled the 30 miles to pick it up, when I asked what day I could come it took ages to finally get through and a solid day arranged. I picked up the proof finally and a couple of days later emailled to say it was fine and to go ahead and sort out the 3 final copies. ( It is nearly impossible to get through by phone, or get called back when leave message so email seems way to go). Well again nothing back, seems the norm by now! Finally in May 08 I emailed, left messages etc saying that I still had not received my final version. I then gave up (was pregnant and had a baby!) til October when I emailed saying ' Full payment was made in January for our Wedding DVD’s and I confirmed in March 08 that the copy I picked up was fine for making into the final version (x3). I have left messages in the past and emailed wondering where these final DVD’s are? Please could you send them to me at ' I then got back 'I am very surprised by this email???? Did you not collect these? I will check tonite and get them in the post asap if this is correct.' Blah blah blah, at the moment he has said he will not post anymore as 'posting obviously doesn't work' (never had any problems receiving mail before!) So as I dont drive and its quite a way away I said I would arrange a courier. To date I have rearranged this courier 3 times due to failed collections. Any advice this is getting very silly now! Anybody know any acts or legislation I can put in writing to this company?

chevalier

Personally I would take them to small claims court, having first sent them a letter recorded delivery stating that they have 14 days to hand deliver to you the 3 copies you require.

Other than that I have no idea what else to suggest
chev

rinefitz

thanks for the advice, do you think a letter along these lines would be ok?

I am now very concerned as to why I still have not received my 3 copies of my final Wedding DVD, It has been over a year since full payment was received. I am unable to travel to Luton but have sent a courier 3 times to try and collect the parcel ( I understand that once due to snow they came on the wrong day – but still there has been 2 more attempts, one when you confirmed you would definitely be there.) I cannot get hold of you via telephone and I have kept copies of all our email correspondence where the same I feel I have no other choice but to seek legal action through the small claims court if I do not receive them within the next 7 days. I suggest that if you are unable to deliver them use special or recorded delivery, I note you say you have sent them this way before but without evidence? I have never had problems with these services before.

I am sorry it has come to this but I really can’t put up with the excuses a year on. If there is a problem with the DVDs can I please request some sort of refund, if this is not possible I am afraid I am going to have to take this matter further.


Thanks for looking!!

Torby

If the DVD final you already received is complete, titles, music, editing etc....I would be inclined to simply make 3 copies myself. If not, it can be difficult to edit footage off a DVD, it can be done, I have done it myself for people, but can be time consuming and costly ( although not nearly as much as you have paid already.)

Then I would chase him through the small claims court, a good result would be get your money back AND get the raw footage on mini Dv tapes, then someone else can edit it, adding titles and effects...again you'll have to pay to get this done properly.

I have edited many 100's of miniDv tapes (normally concert footage that was eventually produced and sold as DVDs at the artists gigs) and raw footage is all you need....so if you can get that back off him you're on to a winner.

If he shot the wedding on one camera , I can't see how he reallistically can expect to be paid more than £300 for the days work.....the balance is the editing cost, people often forget this and only see the costs being charged for "the day" and think its expensive, I know our editing costs are usually about £30 per hour and we reckon a project takes 10 times as long to edit as is on tape (having said that, we normally work with 4 cameras and at least 2 audio feeds, so a 1 Hr concert has 4 hours footage and 2 hrs of audio!...you can see now why we have a factor of X 10)

Allowing for just 1 cameraman and 2 hrs of footage to be edited down to 90mins....you shouldn't have to pay that much.

Finally, you should name and shame....the only reason we continue to work is because people can depend on us, we produce good quality DVDs AND we're good at what we do (our DVDs are actually on sale to the public). Wedding videographers are the same, if they do a good job...they work more...if they are poor at what they do....they don't deserve to be in the business....wedding memories are precious...you can't let this happen to someone else.

uih039

Just a thought: did you by any chance pay by Credit Card? If so, you can get a refund using a section 75 claim.

Even if you only paid some of it by Credit Card you could still claim the full amount.

Andrew.

liebe911

Its too long and high time you would have taken action.

Torby

uih039 wrote: »

Just a thought: did you by any chance pay by Credit Card? If so, you can get a refund using a section 75 claim.

Even if you only paid some of it by Credit Card you could still claim the full amount.

Andrew.

From the sound of this guy, he probably deals in cash only....I'd be really surprised if some one with this type of work ethic has CC facilities....I mean he doesn't sound that professional!