Warning to anybody who is contacted by Sapphire Studios!

peachpixie

Hi, 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. :(

shjo558

Oh dear, it sounds like they have really laid the pressure on.

I assume you ended up signing a credit agreement - if yes there should be a cooling off period.

With that amount of money involved though I would be straight onto Trading Standards tomorrow.

peachpixie

Thanks, I called the OFT yesterday and they said because it was signed on the premises by my mum and the company then there is no cooling off period. Also, because there was always to option to walk away then there isn't anything they can do. I called Sapphire Studios and complained, I was advised to email the company director. I've done this and am waiting for a reply. If I don't get one in two or three days then I'll be chasing it up.

Thanks.

triticale

This is how they work I'm afraid, Venture are the same.

A well-meaning friend bought me a voucher for a 'free' session and 6x4 print.

Plenty of fun in the studio, then the hard sell starts. Despite me telling the woman I was in debt and couldn't afford the thousands of pounds of photos she was all but forcing on me, I ended up agreeing to a 7x9 'upgrade' which was something stupid like 80 quid. The next ones up were thousands.

I said I'd be back with my debit card, I never returned. I didn't have 80 quid! Just wanted to get out of there. Shame to miss out on the 6x4, but the pressure they employ is so horrible it was worth losing that.

Awful 'businesses'. Preying on the poor and weak like so many scammers.

Hope you can get something sorted, but I don't hold much hope I'm afraid.

Darksun

peachpixie wrote: »

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!

I think it's important what happened after this point. When he said it was going to cost £4000 what did you do/say? Did you sign anything at that point? Did you point out that there had been a mistake and you didn't want 40 photos?

dinglebert

triticale wrote: »

This is how they work I'm afraid, Venture are the same.

Must have been a bad "venture" studio. My experience was that they took some great photos. I had the "free" 8x10 which is what I chose. Didn't get any pressure to buy more.

GemJar_2

The same happened to me at DoubleTake studios, I went with a friend who 'won' a free makeover and photoshoot, apparently they set up a shoot for me too without me knowing, they got us drunk (our fault for accepting I know, but as far as I knew it was free). Anyway, they basically trapped us in a room and demanded £600 each. I've still not payed it, I've been told that at the time they didn't have creditors so what I basically did was sign an IOU. Oh well.

Sushiselection

Gosh! How sad to read these comments...What sound like a fantastic idea certainly seems to end with frustration for many! I was excited to receive my 'you've won call' and booked my session yesterday. I have written today to cancel my booking and requested a refund of my booking fee. I hope very much that Sapphire will respond promptly and refund my money.
I hope they surprise us by offering a prompt cancellation and refund servcie.

Chyna-s

Sushiselection wrote: »

Gosh! How sad to read these comments...What sound like a fantastic idea certainly seems to end with frustration for many! I was excited to receive my 'you've won call' and booked my session yesterday. I have written today to cancel my booking and requested a refund of my booking fee. I hope very much that Sapphire will respond promptly and refund my money.
I hope they surprise us by offering a prompt cancellation and refund servcie.

Troll alert.

char16

I recieved a phone call yesterday from Sapphire Studios informing me that i had "won" a makeover and photoshoot. I do remember completing a survey for this, so was quite excited when i was told i had won. The man on the phone seemed genuinely nice and quite polite. He told me all about the day and what would happen, which all seemed lovely, and then we arranged the date and time, but then i asked where the studio was, and all he said was that i would recieve the details in my confirmation e-mail. Then he informed me that i would have to pay a £50 deposit which was refundable on the day. At this point i told him i was sorry to have wasted his time, as i wasnt goin to pay any money for something which i had supposedly won. After reading all the posts about this on this and other sites, i am so glad i chose not to pay the deposit!!

chomsky_2

I went to a Double Take studio years ago as my friend had got me a voucher as a birthday present. To be fair we had a great day, we got hair and make up done (we were going out in the evening so it was fab for us) and had a laugh posing for some photos. After the shoot they took us to the dreaded back room to do their sales pitch but we were just very polite and insisted that we wanted our free photo only and walked out with free pic and no 'credit agreement' for £1800. They were !!!!y but so what, there was no way in hell we were paying £100 a photo.

The thing is you don't have to agree to anything, they can be as pushy as they like, but they cannot physically make you sign anything. I appreciate people can feel intimidated by sales people but the descision to buy or sign anything remains with you and you alone. A lot of people sign up to credit agreements and then post later asking how to get out of them, I find myself shouting at my laptop "why did you sign them in the first place?" If you're not happy to part with the money for something walk away, it will save you a lot of aggro later!