Coverlook Studios

donteatthat

I've recently had a nice day out at the No5 belgravia studios after being sold a voucher for 2 people to go. No dodgy-competition winning but on top of the voucher I paid a £50 deposit per person! It wasn't too packed, and there was a little waiting but the staff were nice and genuine. We were told to take 4-5 outfits and they took loads of shots. Photos cost £70 for 1, £400 for 12 + threw in a few more, and £600 for the whole lot. I got the middle package, got some good photos which can be used for work related promotional stuff - so quite useful really. They asked if there was a special purpose for the photos and took them accordingly. We got 2 discs of the photos to take with us, and they are going to (or they say they are going to...) send a new disk within 4 weeks after they have tidied up the images.
Its a shame I'm not photogenic!

From the sounds of it, my day seems a bit more upfront and honest than the other companies mentioned here, and I would recommend it. I did go however expecting to buy some expensive photos, but I had a good use for the photos I wanted to have taken.

mandy_moo82

I got a call form this company today, and was really excited about winning this prize but a niggling doubt made me look up the net. I'm so glad I found this forum before giving any card details,. i'm not going near it now.

Thanks to evryone who posted

I always say if you've won a prize you won't need to pay money or give card details but still nearly fell for this, very convincing, i was a wake up call for me.

lgarbas

I have to admit to being one of the mugs that paid the £60. I too was called up, saying I’d own a competition online and as I had been doing some research into photo shoots for a Christmas present, I figured it made sense. I received an email detailing the day, in terrible English and grammar – alarm bells started ringing so I emailed the address on the actual website and had an email back from Anne Quinn saying that is was legit and she congratulated me.

However, I then found this forum and all of these comments, only 3 days before I was due to go. So I called Coverlook and told them that I wouldn’t be coming along and why. The guy I spoke to – Ricky I think – sounded narked and a little surprised but did nothing to allay my fears. I even told him where I’d read about the criticism of the company and as I work in public relations, told him that if I ever read anything about the company I work for like this online, I’d be disgusted.

The outcome was that he was apparently going to speak to his manager about this situation and refund my £60. I put all of my concerns down in an email, sent it to both email addresses and 48 hours later had a response from his manager – the legendary Anne Quinn – stating very rudely, that to get my £60 I had to show up to my appointment by which time it was too late for the one I’d made anyway! How convenient!

Avoid these people at all costs – their communication is in disjointed English and I wish I’d gone with my instincts and avoided them like the plague!

clairecross

hi all
i visited coverlook yesterdy and after reading everyones messages i really did not want to go. however i got ther and have to admit that i had a really good experience. apart from having to wait a bit, which i was expecting anyway after reading everyones posts, everythin else was fine. make up and hair was fantastic and despite it being a bit cramped downstairs the photographer was great and took lovely photos.
i was in there for about 3 hours and had a great day!

ejb199

Hi Claire,

did they refund back the £60 deposit? Or £30 if you went alone?

nikki&asha

I got a call saying i had won a photo and pampering session for two worth over £500 each from a competition on mutualpoints.

I booked an appointment for april after a woman i could hardly understand talked at me for 15 minutes, payed my £60 deposit and took my mum with me.

I was sent a very unprofessional looking confirmation letter and absolutely rubbish map and the letter said if you were late you would not get deposit back. No prob i thought i'm never late any way!

Due to the aforementioned map and lack of phone number we were 20 minutes late! I was only given the booking office phone number and it didnt open until 2pm! As soon as we managed to find the dingy looking place i got the manager out and complained about map/ no phone number and told him i still expected my deposit back. He said fine then said we would have to wait as we were late. NO problem.

'Pampering' includes one cup of tea and some moisturizer.

'make over' was having hair straightened or curled by ghds (5 minutes) and a bit of make up where they ask you what colours etc and have no idea what will suit you (20 minutes)

Then photos - photographer was great took loads of photos in loads of different poses and changed clothes , helped match mum and mine outfits for joint shots.
then one glass of wine and look at photos with sale man. Told all 15 photos we liked would be £75 each OR £900 for all 14. No thanks i said ill just have the one free one i was promised and picked a good one of me and mum. Wasnt even a photo it got put on a disk! and had to be very insistant!
Asked for refund of £60 told manager would do it end of day.

Any way i had to call them 3 times to get a refund and threatened to report them to trading standards for misleading me. but i got my money back.

I had a lovely day out and have a really good photo to remember it by but you have ti be very pushy with these people!

Petal_3

Hi there

The above company are now in liquidation but I had a bad experience with them, parting with £500 for an album which never materialised. I finally reported them to trading standards and got my money back through my credit card company (Egg). I did get a call from Front Cover months later offering me the CD of my photos for £100. In hindsight I wish I had taken it as they photos were really nice but I was so peeved with them I just refused.

It does make you wonder if they just con people out of money - close down the company and open up again under another name to do it all again.

I would stay away from this type of thing. There seem to be far more negative experiences than positive ones.

~x~

starangel

Like an idiot i feel for the coverlook scam too, and eventhough the day was actually not too bad, the fact that they clearly don't refund the deposit is just :mad:

If i ring them up and ask about it do i have to quote a reference number or somthing because i remember them taking the receipt to supposedly 'refund' the deposit.

Thanks!

starangel

EDIT: WOW I can't believe it but Coverlook actually gave me a refund back & i didn't even call them to pester about it. Although it took about two weeks, i guesd they maybe are starting to give back refunds because of the numerous complaints?

sarah*a

new-id/burlington are another company that does the same thing.

DD got a 'experience' as a xmas pressie. We rang up to book and were told we had to pay £25 deposit. We then ended up with another voucher (long story) and asked DD if she wanted to take a friend. When we received our confirmation letter there was an offer to pay upfront for photos for half-price. I was dead against it but OH thought it would be nice to get one of the girls together - instead of just their free one each - so we paid an extra £50 for 2 extra photos.

They are 11 and 12 -this becomes relevant later.

We turned up at the studio bang on time. 45 minutes late the girls started to have their 'pampering' - as stated before - hair straightened, a bit of slap and some nail polish - took about 1 1/2 hours. DD had to ask to have her nails done (her friend had had hers done) as they 'forgot'.

The photo session was fast! 3 changes of clothes each - 72 photos in all - took approx 20 minutes.

waited another 45 minutes - then was called into the 'viewing studio' (a box room with a PC in it). A very smarmy young man started telling the girls how photogenic they were and they didn't normally get such good photos etc etc. Now - biased I maybe but DD is super-photogenic (makes you sick!) her friend however - not so. We looked at all the photos - and deleted those we didn't like - left us with about 35 - which we were offered at a 'bargain' price of £600 (plus what we'd already paid plus the deposit). I said - no, we'll have our free ones and the ones we've paid for thank you. So Mr smarmy starts playing to the girls saying - well mum's being a bit mean isn't she and even asked DD's friend if she wanted to ring her mum for a CC number 'cos he was sure she'd want more.

I was stunned to say the least. So I made it clear that we only wanted what we had paid for - and mr smarmy turned into mr sneery. We narrowed our prints right down and chose 3 of our 4 but were stuck over two for the last one - so he said we could have it instead of refunding our deposit. By this time I was so fed up I just said yes - we chose our 5 photos - then he hit me with - 'Ok then - theres just the £5 postage fee to pay'. I paid it cos I just wanted to get out of there

The photo arrived - they are stunning true - but should be for that amount of money. Postage paid? £1.56. and to top it all off there was a voucher inside for another 'free' makeover & photoshoot.

DD really enjoyed it - and I guess as a treat it was fun - but you really have to stick to your guns, don't take any cash/CC and be prepared for rudeness at the end.

The only good thing I could say about new-id/burlington is that they didn't take a deposit for the friend - but that was probably an oversight and I was lucky

:cool: