photographer scam?
What do you do when you find out your photographer is a scam artist? Has anyone dealt with this before? We booked these people back in February, they seemed so great, talked with us for over an hour, showed us beautiful albums, gave us all of these awesome ideas for pictures.....and for some stupid reason I paid in full that day in order to get $200 off the total. I am usually so smart with money and I am totally kicking myself for paying in full.
Anyway, I tried looking up their number to call (I haven't heard from them since February, but that is true of some of my other vendors too so I didn't think much of it) and their website doesn't work and I found a slew of bad reviews that I have never seen before. I originally found them on wedding wire and they had good reviews, so that's why I trusted them. Now I cannot find them on wedding wire and google is suddenly producing all of these horrible reviews (some dated back to 2008-2009 so it's not super recent).
As far as pictures go we might not be totally screwed, our videographer is getting into photography so they already said they would take some pictures anyway just to "practice", but my concern with that is first of all, they're just getting into it, so they're likely not great right now, and if we count on them as our photographer too, who is going to tape the wedding (it's a husband and wife team...though if they're trying to get into photpgraphy AND videography I would assume they have a plan for that).
So I guess I'm just wondering what to do now....I have the contract for the photographer at home so I will try calling them, but if they don't answer what do I do, if they do answer what do I do? Given all these bad reviews, can I trust them to come if they say they will? Since we paid on a credit card is there any way we can dispute the charge? Help! BTW, my wedding is a month from tomorrow, I HIGHLY doubt we could find a new photographer, and plus that would be another 2 grand on top of the grand we already lost.
EDIT: Thanks for all of the advice. I called the studio we were originally going to go with and they have a smaller package for 4 hours for $800 and they're available that day (yay for getting married on devil's night and it not being hugely popular yet). So we'll likely book them to do the ceremony and some post ceremony shots, and then just rely on grandpa and other guests to take reception shots. So with what we lost and what we'll have to pay in additon should still be right around the price we were going to pay anyway had we gone with this other company for the whole day. And my dad is bound and determined to sue these other people or dispute the credit card charge, so hopefully all is not lost!
I haven't told FH yet, he doesn't handle bad news well when he's at work, so I'll have to tell him when I get home, eeek!
Anyway, I tried looking up their number to call (I haven't heard from them since February, but that is true of some of my other vendors too so I didn't think much of it) and their website doesn't work and I found a slew of bad reviews that I have never seen before. I originally found them on wedding wire and they had good reviews, so that's why I trusted them. Now I cannot find them on wedding wire and google is suddenly producing all of these horrible reviews (some dated back to 2008-2009 so it's not super recent).
As far as pictures go we might not be totally screwed, our videographer is getting into photography so they already said they would take some pictures anyway just to "practice", but my concern with that is first of all, they're just getting into it, so they're likely not great right now, and if we count on them as our photographer too, who is going to tape the wedding (it's a husband and wife team...though if they're trying to get into photpgraphy AND videography I would assume they have a plan for that).
So I guess I'm just wondering what to do now....I have the contract for the photographer at home so I will try calling them, but if they don't answer what do I do, if they do answer what do I do? Given all these bad reviews, can I trust them to come if they say they will? Since we paid on a credit card is there any way we can dispute the charge? Help! BTW, my wedding is a month from tomorrow, I HIGHLY doubt we could find a new photographer, and plus that would be another 2 grand on top of the grand we already lost.
EDIT: Thanks for all of the advice. I called the studio we were originally going to go with and they have a smaller package for 4 hours for $800 and they're available that day (yay for getting married on devil's night and it not being hugely popular yet). So we'll likely book them to do the ceremony and some post ceremony shots, and then just rely on grandpa and other guests to take reception shots. So with what we lost and what we'll have to pay in additon should still be right around the price we were going to pay anyway had we gone with this other company for the whole day. And my dad is bound and determined to sue these other people or dispute the credit card charge, so hopefully all is not lost!
I haven't told FH yet, he doesn't handle bad news well when he's at work, so I'll have to tell him when I get home, eeek!