Thread: Venture Photography - Do we have a leg to stand on?

A few weeks ago, I was approached by a woman in a shopping centre to do a survey for venture photography. I didn't really have time to do it and tried to protest but she said it was only a couple of questions, so I answered them and probably got away quicker than I would if I'd kept saying no.
Anyway a few days later I had a call saying I'd 'won' a free studio session and free print. Great I thought, I like free things. So we went along to the free session which was great fun but last night we went back to look at the photos and things went a bit downhill. We were both tired and a bit ratty and when we were shown the photos, they were not that great really. There were a couple that weren't bad and we picked a few that we liked as the guy scrolled through them. From then on followed a very hard sell of expensive framed prints and absolutely no mention of our free print, only a £75 voucher. We ended up being pushed into ordering a 10x8 framed print costing £300, the whole experience was horrible and and soon as we left, I knew we'd made a mistake. It was paid for on a credit card, and I was wondering if any of you with legal experience etc knows if there is anything we can do about this, ideally we'd like to cancel the order but I doubt they will let us.




The experience of last night was very unpleasent and has left myself and my partner arguing over it and is in no way the positive experience we had expected.

Similar Threads:

• have we got a leg to stand on???
• Do I have a leg to stand on???
• Do we have a leg to stand on...?
• Do I have a leg to stand on?
• Not a leg to stand on

I was hoping as we only ordered it last night, that nothing would have been done about it yet and therefore they would have no product yet which they would need to resell.

I considered calling them and explaining everything but looking at the kind of company they are, I highly doubt they would be sympathetic.

I called the studio up and they didn't say no, which is what I was expecting. The lady explained that we could downgrade the frame to the cheapest one, but we would need to keep the 10x8 print as that is being custom printed, which is ok as this combination would only be £40 instead of £300 which to me is far more the kind of price I'd be willing to pay for what were not particularly exciting photos.

She said we'd need to speak to the guy that did our viewing to sort it out so he's going to call me when he comes in. I'm hoping that they are going to value customer experience over an extra £260 profit, I imagine a lot of their buisness comes from word of mouth and if we end up with something we neither want nor can afford, we will certainly not be saying good things about the company!

I certainly will do as soon as I get the call from the viewer guy. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes!

Good news, the guy just called back - which I actually wasn't expecting. When I explained our feelings about the experience of the viewing evening, he was very apologetic about everything and we're now getting the same size print in the basic frame that I'd wanted originally which is costing £40 instead of nearly £300! Feel so much better now and actually have a bit more respect for the company for not just saying all orders are final/nothing we can do etc!

Still think their practices of luring people into the studio with 'prizes' are wrong but at least they have proved to me that they have a little good customer service there, or maybe I was just lucky that I got a reasonable sales person.

Although a franchise, Venture is ultimately owned by Kodak. The quality of their photography is usually good - they employ qualified photographers and concentrate on high-key images and digital enhancement - and their framing is also of decent quality.

Even with the costs of premises, staff and equipment I don't know how they justify their prices, however.

As a fairly keen photographer, I once looked at a job with another chain of portrait studios - until I discovered that skill with a camera was very much a second consideration to high-pressure sales techniques.

Good to see that all worked out well for the OP.

hi there,
I used to work for venture as a photographer and a sales person and I have to say if your not happy then stand your ground. we were all trained to overcome "objections". using phrases like its a bespoke product... well, technically the print is but that costs next to nothing- a 10x8 is only a few quid! and the frame can be re-used!
The order normally sits on the retouchers pile for an age before it gets done anyway. if the studio was anything like the one i worked in then you could have 2-3 weeks before the order went off!

I did love working in the studio with families and i loved the buzz of people loving my images but then there was always so much pressure to sell the work, hit our targets etc.. and with what we charged for the products, well..very little went to the photographer!! not even a bonus. What i averaged in one sale was the same as i took home in a month. Its no wonder that so many photographers are leaving and setting up their own business. it seemed grossly unfair that the talent you pay for is underpaid and lining the pockets of the studio owners and head office.

i feel sorry for all the new photographers that join each year hoping its an amazing carear ladder, when in fact, you work stupid hours, have little or no social life and get paid crap! I'm so glad i moved on, just wished i did it sooner.

We recently had an experience though we purchases the 'discounted' voucher from a store which included a free print or discount on the main picture. Whilst the products are probably overpriced the pictures we saw were excellent. I wasn't overly keen on the high pressure sales to round off the experience (though we had expected it before we went there - seems fairly usual for this type of product) but we decided to purchase one of the products. We collected the pictures and got them home, on putting them up i noticed a couple of problems, we immediately spoke to the Venture office (in Kingston) and they couldn't have been more helpful. The items were replaced, they even brought them to our home rather than have us collect the replacement. We then noticed another minor problem, again sincere apologies and more help than we could possibly expect (not to mention the £450 gift vouchers they have given for the troubles and cancellation of the credit agreement until we are 100% happy) - what more could we ask for?

Considering the type of high pressure sales they use and their high prices, I find it particularly unusual that their customer service has been so good, at least in our experience.

IMHO very well done to everyone at Venture for their speedy and helpful response in both my case and it would seem in yours.

I'm sorry but I'd have to ask what on earth you are all talking about....

I got a "free" £250 voucher for a photo shoot and framed image of my choice from Audi when they were a week late delivering my car seat. We went along to Venture in Milton Keynes and had the pictures taken. We returned a week later, and yes; as you say there was somewhat of a sales pitch. But at the end of the day we could have walked out with a small framed image for free (which would have looked great on my desk in the office), having had 3 free cups of coffee and sat looking at some great pictures of me and my family. Of course they are going to do a sales pitch - they are a business trying to make money.

Yes they are on the pricey side, but its up to you if you want and can afford to buy them. Personally I thought that both the pictures and frames were absolutley superb and although maybe not worth the money, ended up spending £1400.

Glad to hear they let you cancel the picture you ordered though - sign of a good compnay if you ask me.

ended up spending £1400. WOW!!!!!

Now where did i put that digi-camara. Now let me see, Google picture frame companies.

mmm let me try this one, top of the range 48" x 36" =£90.21

Can anyone tell me do i need a licence to start my own photography business?

You'll need 4-6 grand for decent camera equipment and lighting. Add on some decent software, overheads for a studio, photgraphy course at the local uni/ college and i guess you'll be on your way

your knowledge confirms the reason for your original post

Hi everyone.

I'm new to this forum, and have signed up because of reading this thread!

They say never write an e-mail/letter when your angry,but here goes.....

I read with great interest about the experience of Bryony84 who has my full sympathy.

We had a truly awful experience with Venture Photography. We were accosted in a shopping centre a few months back to entice us for a photoshoot. They were offering a deal in which we paid £25 for a photoshoot and a 7 x 5 picture of our choice (which they claim would normally cost around £145). Seemed like a good deal at the time, or so we thought.......and as we hadn't any professional family pictures of the four of us (including our latest addition to the family - our baby son), we accepted their offer.

Whilst waiting in the studio before our shoot began, we were looking at the gallery of images on display. We were a bit wary of the style of some of the images, which seem to be taken at weird angles and at times, some of the subjects had only parts of their faces/heads in the picture. We explained this to the staff, including the manager, that we wanted some thing a little more conventional, but she replied by saying that this is part of the "Venture brand", and we were left feeling that we had little choice but to go with it. So we took a chance, believing some good image may come out of the photoshoot.

The photoshoot itself was fine, I have to say, and it was lovely to see our little girl enjoying herself in the shoot.

However, things turned sour during the viewing of the pictures on a separate date. As with Bryony84, there was an incredible hard sell thing going on from the guy showing us the images, and although we tried to stipulate a budget, he just kept showing us packages that took us well over the limit. Yes, it would have been great to have alot of the images we had seen in a special display set and size, but our finances were stretched.

In the end, although we had decided on the image, we had to go away and deliberate on whether to just stick with what we paid for, i.e. a 7 x 5 framed photo, or be prepared to pay upto our budget limit for a larger/or additional photos. We decided to reject the latter, as the framed photo didn't seem large enough to justify the cost (for us).

I then returned a few weeks later to collect the photo, and saw that it was not the one that we had picked. At the time of being initially approached for the deal, we were told that the format of the photoshoot was to "funk it up" (fair enough, but we hadn't expected parts of our heads to be spliced out in parts). However, if I am honest, I took home the photo without a fuss, as I had just had enough by then, and it was only a basic size at no huge cost. However, when I got home, my husband did not like the image and also felt this is not the one we had initially picked.

So I phoned up the studio again and explained the above, and the manager apologised and suggested I come back for another viewing, and as a good will gesture, we could still keep the image we had already got (although we really were not interested in keeping it).

Then things got ugly! When I returned for the second viewing, the owner of the franchise (not the manager I had spoken to) told me I would have to pay £95 to get another image!!!!!!! I told him that had I been made aware of this when I phoned the manager, I wouldn't have bothered with a long and wasted trip back to the studio. It was obscene to be told this, and to realise the poor level of communication between two senior members of staff in relation to our predicament. The owner also insisted that the photo we did not want was, according to him, the one that we had originally picked - but that was just not he case at all, and I insisted that the error was on his part.

Not only that, but when he finally agreed to producing another image for us at no extra charge, he inisted that I come all the way back to the studio (other side of the city) to collect it! I asked if this could be posted out this time round for goodwill given their error. However, he has declined to post it out, and so one of us will have to make yet another trip, which is costing us alot in petrol. The whole "Venture Experience" hardly seems worth the money we paid, when one adds up the cost of additional time and travel as a result of their error.

What amazed me about the franchise owner was a lack of an apology, a rather defensive attitude and an unwillingness to appreciate customer feedback (priortising instead on hard sell tactics).

If I am objective, I would say the photos taken at our shoot were of reasonable or good quality (save for a few poor ones which included the produced photo we did not want), but the customer service was appalling.

I was very uspset by this experience and will never "venture" back there again, neither can I recommend them to any family or friends.

I am now waiting for the photo that we originally chose to be produced, but this time I leave it to hubby to collect it and he can then tell them what's on his mind!