Wedding Photographer mess!

stevejbrecon

Cheers for all the responses guys.

Quizzical Squirrel - I understand what you mean but when we say we are happy for him to use the photos we have sent back to him he hasn't really got a leg to stand on.

pinkshoes - we have the photos on a cd which he sent us for us to choose from. a decent album somewhere else would cost about £350-£400, so I'm considering suggesting that.

Quizical squirrel (again) - I don't have the contract on me but I will look for it when I get home and see what it says.

Thanks for the responses guys

arcon5

5 years later.... And you want a near 50% refund? Be realistic!

He performed the services and provided the photos so take the £70 he's offered and move on!

I doubt a court will have much sympathy- the guy has been patient enough and due to your years of inaction cannot perform the service. Not his fault.

stevejbrecon

arcon5

I don't really understand your point, he has performed 50% of the service as far as I'm concerned, my contract says that the price paid includes the photographs on the day, the production of a cd or usb with the images on (these two are done) and the production of a 90 image bespoke wedding album and 2 12x12 prints. (these have not been done)

I understand the length of time will be an issue but it shouldn't matter when a service was only half complete and he has been maintaining the entire time that there were no issues to "get back whenever you can" etc, it's not like we didn't have good reason for the delay, not that I want to go into here.

I understand he has been patient, and I appreciate that, but he has stated the entire time that there would be no issues. If he had said at the start "no you have 60 days, sorry" then I would understand his position and would just have to swallow hard, but he is clearly trying to fob me off with some rubbish about format.

Thanks for your input though

Poppie68

Could you not use the £70 to purchase a decent album and print your chosen photo's, these days especially with Ebay you can pick up some lovely wedding albums at a good price.

arcon5

So he's performed the majority of the service, turning up on the day and providing a cd. At least 66% off it minimum. Although probably more like 90% off it since the albums is merely a secondary product to the photography services provided.

He's not provided the rest of the service through no fault of his. A court would look at what's reasonable and its not reasonable to expect him to wait 5 years where wholesale prices and supplies have changed significantly.

It would be like booking and paying for a taxi to pick you up from a city 100 miles away at 11pm say, then you not turning up and expecting a refund, which wouldn't happen as the service was made available to you. Same concept here.

The £70 would go a long way in buying enlarged prints and a nice photo frame or some custom photo books or even some albums. So IMO you should just take it and move on.

stevejbrecon

arcon5

It's really not the same. Using your analogy, it would be like phoning and paying for a taxi for 11pm. Then at 11pm phoning and saying "sorry my wife has fallen down, we are going to be a little late can you please wait for us?" and them saying "yes sir, not a problem we will wait" repeating this over, the whole time the taxi company saying "not a problem sir we will wait".

Now when we get to the taxi there's a man on a push bike with 7% of my taxi fare in his hand, he passes it to me and says "sorry, we don't do taxis anymore" and cycles away.

As I said, in both situations if they had been honest upfront and said "no you have a certain amount of time" then I would understand, but the contract is varied if agreed by both sides. Him saying "get back to me whenever you can, don't worry about it, I will do it whenever" is a variation of the agreement.

spacey2012

how has he made the refund offer ? In writing ?
If not can you get him to put it in an actual letter as in post, stamp , this would strengthen any possible case as he is accepting partial liability.

stevejbrecon

spacey2012

He has put it in an e-mail, in fact he has said as follows

"as promised i will send you a refund of £70 to cover the cost of the album you ordered"

I don't really know what the "promise" he is referring to is, he started to talk about refunds on the phone and I asked him to put it in writing for me first.

If i remember correctly the increase in price from just the photographs to the photographs and the album and some prints, was about £425, I don't really see why I shouldn't get that money back if the service has never been performed, minus an admin fee for keeping in touch with us

arcon5

Because there's a difference between making a service available to you and you failing to use it and them not performing the service

spacey2012

If he puts it in writing, you can use that, I would send him a letter before county court claim for the full amount you paid, as the service is incomplete.
Make it clear he either provides the full service as agreed as he accepted the stay or you shall seek a CCJ for the full amount.
What he provides in his defence is his problem not yours and a Judge will decide what percentage he can keep.
You need to work quickly at 6 years it becomes statute barred.