Videographer lost our footage

[Fatandshattered91]

Hello all,

This is my first post, so I apologise if i’m in the wrong place.

We got married this year and had a videographer on the day. After the wedding, I sent them a thank you message and they said that they’d be in touch to request some details from us soon.
several weeks had passed and we hadn’t heard anything, so this morning I thought I’d ask for an update. They replied this afternoon and said that due to a cyberattack over the weekend, they’ve lost all of our footage.
We’re both obviously devastated, but can’t help feel the timing of this is rather suspicious.
They’ve offered us a full refund as a “gesture of goodwill” surely there must be a way of recovering the files, any advice appreciated.

How is a bloody refund a gesture of goodwill?! Surely that’s just a given. The cheek!

That’s dodgy as hell. I have 2 family members who are wedding photographers and also know several photographers I work with. They would never dream of not having back up files, most duplicate a hard drive before they even leave the location. Something is amiss here.

They’ve messaged me again and said that they’ve sent their equipment to a specialist recovery team who’ve advised them that they cannot guarantee full recovery if at all. They then said that if they do get the files back, they’ll do our video for free - to me this sounds like BS, why would they give away future work?

I would be very insistently requesting a full refund. Have you checked your contract for a non-delivery clause?

There was only an invoice, but they’ve offered us a refund. It’s more about what’s actually happened, I think they’ve made the cyberattack up. Suppose it doesn’t really matter if the footage is long gone.

trying to convince myself we’d have only watched it once anyway 😭

If it’s any consolation our videographer didn’t load tape in the camera on our wedding day 20 years ago so no video. We did get some candid video from FIL (it wasn’t that bad actually) and we’ve only watched it a handful of times!

You could ask about their professional indemnity insurance….as something to make them squirm, (if a satisfactory solution isn’t found)?

My in laws photographer lost all their photos - their indemnity insurance included restaging the whole thing (they declined as it felt weird).
A refund plus compensation would probably be covered

This is bitterly disappointing, but disagree with PP- if they've offered you a refund I can't see what else would be dodgy? I can't imagine they'd have come along to your wedding and pretended to film everything for a laugh just to not make any money.

In practical terms have you asked everyone who attended to send you any videos they took? Obviously not the same but hopefully you can get something

yes, but it’s more about them trying to claim that it was due to a cyberattack when it appears they’ve failed to backup the footage, which seems to be unheard of in the industry.

Could you ask about GDPR and ask have they self reported as most likely your personal data could also have been part of the breech?

Fantastic way to piss them off and leave this unresolved for OP!

OP ask about insurance, you've suffered a loss that can't be rectified with just a refund.

You would have only watched it once.

I think I’ve only opened my wedding album of photos once in the last 20 years.

take the money - go on holiday!

I’m with your in laws, that would be super weird!

Yeah, I know deep down you’re right. I was just feeling rubbish about it yesterday, especially because I think they’re being dishonest. We’ve decided to put the money towards our honeymoon to Japan instead, so it’s not all doom and gloom.