Hello all,

Where to begin.. The misses won a free photo shoot with one free photo.

we had the shoot done and the guy came round a week later to show us the pictures on his laptop.

He then managed to convince me to buy the DVD which included 5 photos plus 1 free photo for £375.

I chose the photos that I wanted and the guy filled out the "order form." Then I signed it.

Now,

I told him that there is no way I can pay that much out in one go so we agreed verbally a repayment plan, nothing in writing.

A couple of days before the first payment was due after some discussion; my misses and I agreed that we really just cannot afford this kind of expense, so I got in touch with the guy who pointed me towards the order form saying that I signed a contract..

At no stage during the order process was I told that I was entering a contract, or was I pointed towards the Terms and Conditions which were printed in a pale blue on the reverse of the order form. Nor did it say on the order form that by signing I am agreeing to terms and conditions.

This guy is now threatening me with legal action and debt collection for being in breach of contract.

I guess the reason I'm here is,

do I have any legal right to defend myself as I wasn't shown the terms and conditions and I wasn't directed to them before signing and wasn't told that I was entering a contract.

Any help and/or advise would be really appreciated.

Chris.

when did you sign it?

" I chose the photos that I wanted and the guy filled out the "order form." Then I signed it. "

You really should stay away from these ...like Catalogue Accounts and Mobile Phone contracts...there is usually only one sorrowful conclusion.

Regards

Andy

Hi,

A month ago,

made a payment of £50 on the 24th of February to get him off my back as he was getting quite irritable that I was trying to back out.

Yes...I know, there is a cooling off period which I saw after being pointed towards the T&C's in the after event.

I know I'm stupid for signing anything in the first place, but I feel duped in addition to being under pressure as he was sat next to me in my living room.

Wish she never won the damn competition in the first place, a competition that's cost me near on £400

Thanks,

There is probably not a lot you can do. However, you might like to start looking around to see how many other people one this so-called "competition".

The likelihood is, of course, that a huge number of people "won" the competition because actually it was just a device to get your contact details and to get a salesman into your home , to make the pitch and close the sale.

I think with a bit of solid work you could find other people who were in the same boat. If you could do that then we would love to know about it here and also I think that would give you a good basis for getting out of it all.

I would start off by having a look around to see what the real definition of a "competition" is and also find out whether there are any rules or regulations – or laws – affecting this kind of thing. There may well be. There certainly are rules on holding raffles or lotteries. I think that any competition which is open to the public is probably going to be subject to some kind of regulation. It may be that you are entitled to ask for statistics on the number of competitors and the number of winners et cetera.

Whatever you find out, don't kid yourself that this was a genuine competition. It is most likely that you were set up – along with a lot of other people

Incidentally, when you let people into your home, you are often at your most vulnerable.

• You're on your own territory and you feel secure
  
• You have a sense of duty that you must be hospitable towards your guest
  
• You are not in a shop/buying/selling environment any more so your guard is down
  
• Your visitor is sitting down with you and you may even have offered them a cup of tea
  
• You're having a chat and passing the time of day and you're receiving compliments about the interior of your home
  
• It's in the evening when you're tired
  
• You realise also that your visitor has come out of his or her way to see you
  
• Your visitor has done this tens or hundreds of times before
  
• This is your first time
  
• Your visitor has manipulated you into this situation. He/she is an experienced professional and they expect to make a sale.
  
• You are out of your depth – but you don't realise it
  

.

Have a vague recollection that there are some special rules about contracts that you sign in your own home. can't remember what the rules are or whether relevant to you. Hopefully someone more expert will come by and advise.

Simply check any contract and see if it refers to cooling off period or cancellation rights....and were they brought to your attention at the time you signed.

Yup - these 'competitions' or special offers of a photoshoot for a low price including a 'free' photo are a well known and much used tactic to sell a larger portfolio of images, often for a hugely inflated fee. As a photographer who takes family portraits etc I would do the shoot and include a couple of prints for a fraction of the price quoted here and would then either give the client the remaining images on a flash drive or offer to have additional images printed for around £5 each depending on the size. To sell you a DVD with only half a dozen images for £375? Way more than you needed to have paid, but of course you know that

Good advice above. Look for flaws in the contract or ways to challenge the legality of the 'competition' itself

I might be a little bit late for this thread, but you might have a case under the Consumer Right Act 2015.

The Act says that the goods must be of satisfactory quality that a reasonable person would accept given the price.

In other words, if a similar product from another photographer would be £100, your photographs and DVD should be considerably better than that for £375 - a Rolls Royce is subject to a higher level of expectation of quality than a Ford.

Under the Consumer Rights Act you have a legal right to reject goods that are of unsatisfactory quality, unfit for purpose or not as described, and get a full refund, but you have to do that within 30 days.

After that, up to the first six months you have to give the seller the opportunity to repair or replace the item instead of the refund - but you can state a preference for a full refund.

I'd guess that if you're outside of the 30 days, then repeatedly asking for a replacement of appropriate quality will soon make them fed up enough to offer a refund to make you go away.

I would also suggest contacting a more reputable photographer and asking what they would charge for the same stuff to get a benchmark for your "reasonable person" test.

Disclaimer:

I am not a lawyer, you may want to seek proper legal advice before doing any of this.

urm.........

dx

I print high quality prints for photographers and artists, and run a photostudio for photographers to hire, I know how much they supply digital images for. £375 for 5/6 images is vastly inflated.

As chr0m4t1c says, you might have an argument based on this.

Worth contacting a couple of local photographers (or even just checking websites/facebook pages) to see their rates, as different parts of the country will vary.

Most photographers offer way more than 5 images, for a start, and usually charge, on average, £15-20 per digital image.

Digital only packages tend to be around £200-300, at the top end, and this is with 20-30 images AND includes the cost of the studio session, which would usually be booked at 2 hours, but could be much longer for a newborn session.

It sounds like they are trying to recover the cost of the studio session in your price, as well as vastly inflating the costs of the prints...