Wedding photographer not produced wedding albums

dj1471

Is the remaining £250 enough to buy the missing albums etc. from another supplier? If so ask him to provide the raw photos in return for considering the matter closed, then take your business elsewhere.

hollydays

It just sounds like fraud.
I suspect you are not the only one.
Id gather as much information about him as possible.
Google every bit of information you have
How much and how did you pay him?
Where did you see his ad? Where does he advertise now?

hollydays

SouthUKMan wrote: »

I would suggest that you pick up the phone and talk to him, or if he has a business address I would visit him - assuming that you can keep your cool - and try and have a reasonable conversation with him. Email is fine for documenting what has been said, but it is also very faceless. If he is a decent person, then dealing with you in person is far more likely to result in positive action.

He's clearly not a decent person and the op has been more than patient.
He's taking advantage of the emotions involved here.

Sofitos

U5o52, I assume the best way to get album or money back is to start formal procedure of small claim. Initially you need to write pre-court letter (keep all receipts and use recorded delivery such as Signed for) and then start small claim using service MCOL https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome. It's quite simple, just complete couple of online forms (http://guide2law.com/starting-small-claim-online) and send Particulars of Claim. I hope, when you "photo-cowbay" get first correspondence he would like to settle claim and pay your money back rather then be sued.

flashg67

Is there a time limit on pursuing a section 75 claim via your credit card company (presuming you have proof of payment)?

pinkshoes

U5o52 wrote: »

Hi all,

My wife and I got married Aug 2016 and hired a wedding photographer. We paid him 75% upfront with the other 25% to be paid on collection of the photo albums. From our invoice we had been promised one Italian leather photo album, 2 parent photo albums, one signed picture frame, an internet password to view pics online plus photography on the day.

On the day he was excellent. Within 3 weeks of the day, he provided an internet password to view the excellent pics. However, one year and two weeks on we have had nothing else. We were told in October 2016 that we was starting to put the albums together. Since then I have sent emails asking for updates yet he keeps making excuses such as the supplier is having issues etc.

My question is where do I stand legally and what should my next steps be?

Thank you all in advance.

Have you downloaded and saved all these pictures that you have online access to? If not, do it!

Are these images high resolution so that you can use them to get albums made? If so, I would start costing up how much it will be to get someone else to make the albums up.

Once you have the images downloaded, write to the photographer giving him 28 days to produce the photo albums before you will be taking legal action against him. Send with proof of postage.

You can then sue him for the cost of obtaining the albums outstanding. You would not get a full refund as you have already had the online images. You need to get quotes in how much the albums will cost to get made, assuming the images online are of suitable quality.

Sicard

As soon as a vendor starts making excuses, illness, busy, blaming others etc alarm bells should be ringing. The world is sometimes interposed with not very nice people. It happens in most trades.

The above advice is good. The photographer may do weddings as a part-time job having thought it's a cushy number to make a few bucks. Now he can't be bothered to complete the promised job.

If you can glean the photos off the internet unless he's taken them off. If he has sadly your treasured memories may be lost forever. You have maybe three options to make him pay. Charge-back, small claims court or if you want to risk it suing not only for the money but for loss of the one of the most important days of you and your OH's lives.

Suing wedding photographers is quite a common occurrence. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6263595/Couple-sue-wedding-photographer.html

iammumtoone

As this is wedding photos I think I would treat this differently, yes you will most likely lose money and pride by not making the photographer do what they should have done but some things are more important. Especially as you are happy with the pictures I would cut your losses and try to just get the original digital files and rights to re-produce from him. You can then save up to have them put into albums by someone else.

SuperHan

There's advice on here about getting the raw or original files.


I assume that if they have been uploaded to an internet site then they have already been edited by the photograph. It is these edited files that you want.


You will probably find the raw files are no where near as good as the photos you've seen, and a large portion of the cost of a photographer will be for the time spent editing. Sending raw files to a new photographer for an album will be significantly more costly than sending the edited photos.

Gavin83

U5o52 wrote: »

Can I sue?

For what?

Assuming you have the edited photos you should be able to get the services he hasn't provided for £250. Seeing as you still have a £250 payment outstanding this works out quite well and I suspect this payment is purely for the albums, hence why he doesn't expect it until they've been received.

Of course if it costs you more to get the album made then you can sue him for the remainder but I'd imagine we'd be talking minimal amounts here.

Given the time it's taken I would accept he probably isn't going to provide that service and would start looking elsewhere.