Photographer issues - can I get refund though?

Justengaged

I did read the sticky thread, but I'm not sure if this falls under consumer rights or not as it's relating to digital goods, namely photographs (of our wedding).


We hired a photographer for our wedding, and were told it would be 2 months before we would receive the edited version. We waiting the two months and nothing arrived, so I contacted the photographer and asked when we could expect them...bombshell of "I'm running late, should take another two weeks". Frustrating but ok, and gave 2 weeks and still nothing.


Chased up again and.... "I hurt my arm, I'm going to be late, and I haven't started them yet". Urgh! So gave them a bit more time and then chased up a couple of weeks later....finally said they'd be ready in couple of days - hurrah.


The photos finally turn up (a week later and not a couple of days), and they don't appear edited. I contacted the photographer by letter so I had something to refer to and they went a bit nuts on me citing defamatory laws yadda yadda (I had been professional and v.careful in my letter to avoid exactly that so bit of a baloney response).


Anyway I asked for a partial refund as they were late and didn't appear edited - they then sent a before and after shot to show they did edit them, and looking at them we definitely never received the edited version only the before shot, so I've queried this (politely and professionally) and asked for a partial refund owing to delay in sending photos.


My question is (sorry for long post) do I have a leg to stand on though?

AJXX

Is it just a person or an actual Ltd company?

Also if you don't mind what was the full cost you paid and how much are you asking to be refunded.

Justengaged

Thanks for reply, it was a person and it was less than £500 but they're saying that the contract stated no refunds. We didn't actually stipulate a price, but it wasn't anything greedy only about £50-£100 at most.

wealdroam

Justengaged wrote: »

Thanks for reply, it was a person and it was less than £500 but they're saying that the contract stated no refunds. We didn't actually stipulate a price, but it wasn't anything greedy only about £50-£100 at most.

The fact that the contract says 'no refunds' is irrelevant.
Think about it... it he didn't even turn up on the day, could he say "the contract says no refunds", and just keep the money and provide nothing?

They have not provided the agreed service so are not entitled to the full payment.

However, you do need to be clear on what you want.
If you think a refund of (say) £80 is the right amount, then you need to say so.

InsideInsurance

The length of time is unlikely to lead to anything significant as you have not suffered any loss due to the delay.

Clearly the edited/ unedited is another thing.

Did you not get given a copy of the unedited photos fairly quickly after the event whilst they were being edited?
Are there not the inevitable slightly random black & white or sepia photos?

I'd stick more to the lack of editing than the timescales.

Of cause the problem is what the definition of editing is and if this was clarified at any point in any way. As a keen hobbyist photographer I will shoot most my photos in RAW as this captures the most data in each image giving me the most to work to. I generally will then batch process them to convert them to jpg or tiff. Now arguably this is "editing" as it is manipulating the photos.

Beyond my skill set is a friend who is a pro photograph manipulator, he can take a picture of a size 30 plain girl in a bikini with no makeup etc and turn the photo of her into a rockabilly goddess looking like a size 8 with full makeup, a host of tattoos etc. Of cause with him just to edit that one photo would cost you much more than the £500 you've paid for the full shoot and all the editing.

Was their any discussion on what the "editing" would actually include?

Justengaged

No discussion on what editing would entail but having spoken to them, they've said they did more than just convert .raw to .jpg.

When I said to them re. the before and after picture (as the after looked over exposed and you couldn't see my veil, or half of my husband face from it), they said that it is they're edited version and they thought the brightness looked good. I look blonde from it, and I'm a brunette.

They've offered to give us the .raw images, which are now 2 days overdue, not too surprised at that given everything. If the .raw pictures show up then we'll just edit them ourselves, we're keen photographers, albeit amateur, and have photoshop software so will try to get the images we wanted.

I know there will always be an "artistic" difference of opinions on how something will look, but I would've thought some of the things that we're not overkeen on are what most people would be unhappy with.


Will see what happens with the .raw images, thanks for advice given so far.

DevCoder

As a side note they can't quote defamation law as no third party was involved.

i.e. who has witnessed your apparent defamation of their character? If the answer is only yourself and the photographer then no defamation of character has occurred.

Defamation law generally follows these steps

Someone made a statement;
that statement was published;
the statement caused you injury;
the statement was false; and
the statement did not fall into a privileged category.

so whilst the first happened, the defamation accusation falls down on point 2 because

Publication -- For a statement to be published, a third party must have seen, heard or read the defamatory statement. A third party is someone apart from the person making the statement and the subject of the statement. Unlike the traditional meaning of the word "published," a defamatory statement does not need to be printed in a book. Rather, if the statement is heard over the television or seen scrawled on someone's door, it is considered to be published.

and point 4 is also arguable.

Citation from findlaw.com

Justengaged

Oh yeah it's totally rubbish on that part. We haven't made any false statements in the letter, I have evidence backing up each point I made as well, plus the majority of the stuff she's having a pop at me about were queries and not statements so good luck if she thinks that one would fly in court.


Will chase her up again tomorrow if not received anything from her - all this fuss, really is what's annoying me now, we should've had our photos ages ago and instead it's a dragged out mess that's not making for a very nice memory of the wedding & the photos.