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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To demand a FULL refund

100 replies

BasicallyFcuked · 17/06/2014 18:32

DH and I got married a month ago.

The photographer was a friend of a friend (but still professional) who gave us a bit of a discount. The total cost for them to photograph from 9am-6pm was £800 (a very good price by comparison to others in my area), with two copies of all the photos on discs. The venue was a long drive, about 2 hours from the photographers usual 'base' but the price included travel too.

Conversations with the photographer in the past couple of weeks have indicated that there were around 1000 photos after basic editing-out had been done. This was part of the agreement, we wanted the 'shit' photos as well as the good ones, the blurry shots, half-head shots etc (for potential amusement value), which is why there are so many.

Anyway...we had a phonecall from her yesterday. To say that somehow the discs and her camera have been mostly wiped, meaning she's lost all but about 20 random photos that she's managed to salvage. We've not seen any of them yet but they are mainly the candid shots of people talking, two of dh and I, and one group shot with everyone.

To say we're gutted is an understatement...but I've calmed down a lot since yesterday, there's no point in crying over it, nothing can be done now. Thankfully a lot of friends and family took photos so we do have some nice ones anyway.

The sticking point is...when dh spoke to her, he asked for a full refund. The photographer is refusing, and offering to refund £500. The additional £300 she thinks she should keep, as even though most of the photos are gone, we are getting 'some' professional shots (20 out of 1000...forgive me if I don't piss my pants in gratitude), and of course she was working all day, and incurred travel expenses etc.

My opinion is that I couldn't give a fcuk about her travel expenses and wasted day...we paid her for a service, which she has not delivered on, for a fairly huge event in our lives. I don't see that a mistake like this is excusable at all, and don't see why we should pay £300 for pretty much naff all.

Am I BU to expect a FULL refund, AND the 20 remaining photos on disc free of charge?

OP posts:

Osmiornica · 18/06/2014 13:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PeterParkerSays · 18/06/2014 13:40

I really don't think the photographer has given much thought to all this apart from my work to day and fuel on the day cost x so I'll ask for y as a reasonable amount to cover my costs. As she's about to discover, it doesn't work like that.

Hope you gave her hell and got to the bottom of the 20 random photos.

RedRoom · 18/06/2014 19:43

YANBU. She hasn't provided the goods/full service paid for, so should be refunding you. The fact that it was your wedding day makes the loss worse, and so for her to offer a few pics that aren't lost, yet still charge several hundred pounds, is terrible. She should have taken steps to pretext herself from this kind of mess, like all of the other reliable photographers on here have said they do. In a round about way, by charging you £300, she is saving herself the cost of bothering to pay to insure herself.

TheIronGnome · 18/06/2014 19:53

I have shot a couple of weddings in a semi professional capacity and I can tell you now, had there been a loss of photos like yours I wouldn't have taken a penny.

Her accepting anything from you at all is dispicable, stand your ground.

wtffgs · 18/06/2014 20:04

YANBU

She cannot charge you anything! Surely a professional photographer backs up their shoot every day for weddings etc?

claraschu · 18/06/2014 20:08

If I were her I would be falling over myself apologising, offering you freebies and hoping you might find it in your heart to forgive me one day.

londonrach · 18/06/2014 20:10

I'd take her to small claims to get the photos redone

zippey · 18/06/2014 22:12

There are ways and means of recovering deleted items from a pc or memory card. Its easy to do.

UncleT · 19/06/2014 00:46

YANBU - no bloody way. She is incredibly cheeky, to say the least. What of the 'friend' though which you engaged her services? Does she know about the situation? If so, what's her reaction?

KoalaDownUnder · 19/06/2014 03:57

She's insane.

Why the fuck would you pay her anything for that, let alone 300 quid?!

Plateofcrumbs · 19/06/2014 07:49

I too find it hard to understand how she has managed to lose all the photos at this stage, one month down the line.

As others have said this is THE nightmare scenario for a professional photographer, particularly a wedding photographer.

The riskiest bit should be done and dusted same day (getting cameras home + memory cards backed up). They should have been regularly swapping cameras and/or cards throughout the day in case of a memory card becoming corrupted.

They should then have the original files backed up (including an off-site or cloud back up) and working files backed up regularly.

It should be incredibly difficult indeed to irretrievably lose everything a month after the event. But is something you should be insured for.

So no YANBU to want a full refund as a bare minimum.

therealeasterbunny · 19/06/2014 08:34

This happened to a friend of mine. The photographer offered a full refund as asking the couple to pick any venue they liked, irrelevant of cost, so they could restage the photos. He also said that the bride could have a replacement dress of her choice, as well as hair, make up etc done on the day of the restage.

So no, yanbu, AT ALL! A full refund is the bare minimum she should give you. And of course you should still be given the 20 pictures she took for nothing, no doubt about that!

therealeasterbunny · 19/06/2014 08:35

Sorry, that should have read '...full refund AS WELL AS asking...'

littlequestion · 23/06/2014 13:43

So what happened, OP? Did you get your money back?

zipzap · 23/06/2014 14:46

Do you have legal insurance on your house or car insurance?

If you do, speak to them and they will help you to write a letter for free with all the appropriate demands and correct legal speak in order to get not only your money back but some compensation for the loss of your photos or retaking them as others have said.

Another vote here for reckoning she has cocked up on the photos and has deliberately 'lost' them as she doesn't like them and doesn't want them to go out with her name on...

BrunoBrookesDinedAlone · 23/06/2014 14:57

Gilmore, surely if she'd done that then as soon as she went over the limit the camera would have said full? - any reasonable digital SLR wouldn't let you actually take any more photos surely?

hhhhhhh · 23/06/2014 15:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CrispyFB · 23/06/2014 16:06

I bet they exist but they're just crap. Perhaps she had a setting wrong, wasn't checking as she shot and found out afterwards they were all far too dark, over exposed, too slow a shutter speed so everything is blurry, lens set to manual by accident and she never noticed etc. She realised the only way out of it is to pretend they were "lost". The fact that the only ones that are okay are at the end of the day by the sounds of it suggests she only noticed the bad setting then, and perhaps one or two others were salvageable depending on the error.

As has been said, in most cases it's relatively easy to retrieve files AND any sensible photographer would have multiple backups.

I was a professional photographer for a few years (families, only did the one wedding) and part of the high cost that customers turn their noses up at is for all the insurances for things like this, and the multiple backups including off-site. As the other photographers who have posted here have said - this is the stuff of nightmares and I would be beyond mortified, and bending over backwards to resolve the issue as best I could, not charging £300!!

Pretty sure the small claims court will see in your favour. Good luck!!

CoolCat2014 · 23/06/2014 16:12

I'm a wedding photographer and the thought if something like this happening brings me out in cold sweats... Why I always shoot with two cameras, multiple cards, and the first thing I do after getting back from a wedding is back up photos to several different locations, one off-site in case the house burns down... Don't think it's possible to be too paranoid there. I know photographers who have had memory cards corrupt, or files go missing, but in 99% of cases there is a way to retrieve the files. Sadly occasionally not (but more likely to be card failure IMHO).

Her contract should clearly state liability in case of loss, if it doesn't she's put herself in a bad situation to start with.

I personally (after having a cried and hidden for a weekdoing everything I could to see if anything was recoverable) would offer you a full refund and some kind of re-shoot, though I know in reality it's hard to get family back together!

As others have said, I'd consider taking it up with a small claims court.

CoolCat2014 · 23/06/2014 16:21

Also to Gilmore - most DSLR cameras will earn you if you're trying to shoot without a card, and there are setting you can set so that you can't take any photos without a card in. I don't think they have any built in memory... At least mine don't... Why would you want that as a feature?

CoolCat2014 · 23/06/2014 16:22

Warn you not earn you

WickedWitchoftheNorthWest · 23/06/2014 17:11

What ended up happening, OP?

Staryy · 23/06/2014 19:32

I can't believe this OP! How did your talk with her go?

Pipbin · 23/06/2014 21:14

Come back OP, I want to hear what happened.

DeWee · 23/06/2014 21:42

I'm fairly certain that round about the time we got married on the ark before digital photos, a photographer got taken to the small claims court over photos and the result was the photographer had to pay for a second reception so wedding photos could be taken with their guests.
I remember our photographer talking about it and how he took measures to stop this happening-he used more than one camera was one thing in case of damaged film.

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