Sapphire Studios. Hope somebody can help...

peachpixie

Hi, I've been advised to post this on here in the hope that someone can help me.

I went to Sapphire Studios with my mum and my 12 year old sister yesterday.

My mum won some free tickets although she couldn't remember how; she does do a lot of surveys online so we thought it was one of them. We had to leave a deposit of £100 and what they don't tell you is that you only get a 6x4 print which costs £45 + vat. Any other prints cost £95 per photo, even if you just want them put on a CD!

The preparation and photoshoot is great fun, it just the aftermath when the fast talking pushy salesman comes in that it all goes downhill. We chose 40 photos that we liked from our shoot, that's £4,000 worth of pics. We didn't know that we were picking the ones we wanted to buy, we thought that we were picking ones we liked to look at them again. The next thing we know we're being told that the 40 photos we chose were £95 a picture and that it was going to cost £4,000!

My mum and sister are registered disabled; which they don't cater for because the lift only goes up to the second floor and the make-up room is on the third!

The £100 deposit went towards the cost and the rest was financed with a 62% discount. So 40 photos cost £1400, £500 of which had to be paid upfront and the rest is now being paid off over 12 months on a credit agreement. We had never had anything like this done before and wanted to take something away but not this! He also took £10 from my mum's bank account but didn't say what that was for.

Is there anybody we can contact about this credit agreement? It's emptied my bank account (I'm a student, but there was no way I was letting my mum pay for it all herself) and landed my mum with another thing she has to deal with each month.

The salesman's attitude; "Well we need to make our money somehow".
It was a good day but with a massive sting in the tail.

I hope somebody can help. I feel awful because I convinced my mum to have it done because she doesn't get to feel special very often and now I've landed her with all this debt. :(

italiastar

I'm sorry to hear about this. Try seaching Google - I did a quick search and found this - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=179156

Apparently this was a previous incarnation of the same company. I'm not sure if there may be a cooling off period for the credit agreement - I believe there is either 7 or 14 days for ones signed at home, but I don't think this applies when signed on the company's premises. Try phoning Consumer Direct tomorrow - it looks as though they've heard about this company. Good Luck!

Butlers1982

are these types of rip offs still doing the rounds!

He also took £10 from my mum's bank account but didn't say what that was for.

so why authorise someone to take money out of her account??


Im amazed with this post. have you signed a credit agreement??

peachpixie

I didn't but my mum did because she didn't want to leave without any photos. It isn't very often that we get to do stuff together so we went for this. I'm calling the OFT tomorrow to see if I can do anything.

He was a very pushy man who spoke very quickly and took advantage of my mum's confusion. We were not told anything about the cost beforehand and anybody I asked said it would all be sorted in the private viewing room.

So Butlers1982, yes they are still going around and ripping off new people.

Thanks for the advice.