Wedding Photographer Sued

[robbins.photo]

Adam Carolla - Catch A Contractor | Full Episodes | Spike | Bios | Spike

Catch a Fauxtographer.


Do you realize how hard it is to successfully sue (and collect from) a contractor for poor service?

Make her come back and second shoot the wedding again with someone who knows what they are doing.. lol.. that would be classic.

 

[limr30 3]

I'm not saying the couple had to pay more to get better, they got screwed--she's clearly awful, but i don't think it warranted a lawsuit based on subjectivity, nor this amount of "press" It's an assumed risk and this happens everyday. I'm not really defending her, but did she actually violate her contract?

Apparently she did because the clients won their case. Would they have won had this been a case in the U.S.? Who knows, but contract law in the UK is really not much different than it is here.

 

[astroNikon]

Wow. A wanna-be fauxtograper manages to totally ruin a wedding.

Meaning:
The official conducting the ceremony was plastered.
The flowers were dead or wilted.
The cake was tasteless and had no frosting.
The dress was the wrong size & color.
An earthquake (7.2 on the Richter scale) occurred during the vows.
The tuxes were from the 1970s. And they were lime green.
The maid of honor fractured an ankle after a heel broke on her shoes.
The rings ended up being from a box of Cracker Jacks.
The flower girl vomited all over the bridge and groom.
The ring bearer filled his pants.
The bottle of champagne was filled with tap water.
The DJ played only reggae and jazz at the dance.
The roof of the church leaked.
The nuts at the reception were rancid.
The limo broke down on the freeway.
A typhoon flooded the photo shoot.
17 guests were arrested for assault in a brawl (started by the photographer!).
The groom ended up in the ER after thrown rice hit his left eye.
The bride's bouquet exploded when her (unmarried) sister caught it.
The bride's veil burst into flames when lighting the unity candle.
The unity candle had been replaced with a Roman candle.
Everyone got drenched when the Roman candle set off the church's fire sprinkler system.
The bride's maternal grandmother had a stroke during the ceremony.
A 16-ton weight fell through the roof of the church, landing on one of the groomsmen and killing him.
The reception line was interrupted by a gang-led gunfight for 'turf'.
The broom's oldest brother lost his bong.
A drain line backed up at the reception, spewing raw sewage across the dance floor.
Attempting to remove the garter from his bride, the groom broke a finger.

And to top it all off: The groom's parents are still being detained by the TSA at the airport.

yeah but the bride and groom loved the photos!!

 

[Braineack]

Apparently she did because the clients won their case. Would they have won had this been a case in the U.S.? Who knows, but contract law in the UK is really not much different than it is here.

she didn't show up. lol.

 

[robbins.photo]

she didn't show up. lol.

Did anyone check the photobooth for her?

 

[astroNikon]

She's a Flash in the pan photographer
wait, she was too cheap for the flash part.

<---- is hiding from @tirediron before I get sued into bankruptcy.

(Okay actually, I'm just going to go shoot with a smile on my face knowing that I have MORE of a reason to avoid weddings now.)

Weddings are good
where else can you slip up tremendously AND gain experience at the same time of what not to do ??

 

[table1349]

If you haven't seen it, a statement from the Groom. Released a few hours ago.

A Statement by Paul & Chareen Wheatley regarding the claims by by Chloe Johnston. Dated 14th April 2016.

Our original Court Claim is added at the end of this statement, so readers can see exactly what our complaints were.

We refute allegations made by Chloe Johnston photography in relation to recent media coverage and will address the points she has raised in her online statement. Chloe arrived late for the wedding booking which the wedding venue can confirm, along with a text message from Chloe apologising for her lateness. We have not alleged that she was late for the wedding ceremony, we have stated that she arrived after the agreed arrival time, which was 11am. The reason we expected her at 11am was that she had failed to respond to ALL our attempts to contact her over the previous month so we had missed the client meeting and any planning phone calls we should have had. She was supposed to arrive early so we could go through the plans with her. Chloe has never apologised for the stress she caused us when she ignored all our attempts to contact her.

A bride takes two hours plus to prepare for the Wedding so Chloe did capture some getting ready shots and that has never been disputed.

Our main issues surrounded the very poor quality of our group shots and missing coverage. Although Chloe's pre-wedding behaviour deprived us of any opportunity to plan them, we took a list of our required photos to the wedding and gave them to her. We only have a handful of the formal group photos we requested. Some of these are in odd locations like the car park, with cars in the background.

During the booking process, Chloe indicated she wanted to go into the woods near the hotel to do the “couple portraits”, but we warned her the groom is disabled and might not be able to walk that far. On the wedding day, Chloe tried again to get us to go to the woods. The groom explained again that he couldn't walk there and expected to continue the portraits at the hotel. To our surprise, Chloe then persuaded the bride and matron of honour to go to the woods instead. The groom was left alone at the hotel for around 45 minutes. We feel that the trip to the woods cost us coverage we wanted and caused bad feelings. Chloe should have been gathering the coverage we wanted not using our wedding as her portfolio shoot.

Our photobooth supplier was I-Events and it's easy to see that the photobooth images (of Chloe) are of a higher quality than those supplied by Chloe as our “professional wedding photographer.” We never gave permission for Chloe to use the photo booth or sign the guest book.

We received around 276 photographs on a USB from Chloe, however some are duplicates, eg black & white versions. If those images had been quality ones and we had been supplied with the group photos we requested there would probably never have been a court case. We gave the news agency access to the full set of images and a representative selection was chosen for the articles.

In Chloe's statement to the court she claimed that we had been very happy with our images, yet our original statement to court shows this to be untrue. We waited 9 weeks for our images and during that time we were sent a small preview set, which we were happy with. You can see my wife's response to those in Chloe's statement. However, for Chloe to mislead readers by claiming this reaction was to the full set is unacceptable. The first time we saw the full set was 8.30pm on 22nd November. We made our complaint about quality and missing coverage on 25th Nov.

A slightly confusing aspect of some of the media reports surrounds “fifteen photos.” The fifteen photos are in relation to coverage of the evening reception, not the full day. As Chloe was not responsible for running the photobooth we feel that 15 photos is very low for evening event coverage. Despite that, it was not a major issue in the court claim as you will see.

Chloe has also alleged that she had a second case against us for fraud. This is completely untrue, which we will explain in a moment. After our initial complaint Chloe blamed us for all the things we were complaining about and described us as unreasonable. We were unable to get her to take any responsibility for her failings, so realised we either had to shut up or take her to court. We then realised that we couldn't proceed with a court claim because Chloe had not supplied her address or a contract. We texted Chloe to ask for her address and she replied “F*** off” so we had to try and figure out where to serve the court documents. We found out her address but she denied that she lived there, so we drove there to see if there were residential properties on the street. (Google showed it as industrial units so we were confused.) Chloe phoned the police and claimed we were stalking her. She also denied that she lived there, so the stalking claims didn't quite make sense.

We then obtained an address for her father, following a public appeal for information. When we submitted the court claim, we used both addresses at which Chloe might reside, because she wouldn't tell us the truth. So we submitted the same claim against both addresses. The court hearing on 6th April was simply a formality to get the claim against her father's address removed because the claim had been dealt with at the industrial park address.

On the day of our original hearing, Chloe did not attend the court. She claims that she lost because her documents were lost but this was not the case. She had submitted her written defence prior to the hearing and we were sent a copy of it as is standard practice in such cases. The judge had all the information he needed to reach a decision.

An aspect of our claim was misrepresentation because Chloe had advertised as an experienced wedding photographer capable of producing “stunning romantic photographs.” It was only when we complained that she changed her story and blamed us for booking a “student photographer.” We based our decision to book Chloe on her professional website (now taken down) her Facebook page (also down) her advertising in Facebook groups and her verbal representation. We truly believed that she was an experienced wedding photographer because she consistently claimed to be one. Yet on the day of our wedding she attended with a cheap consumer DSLR and cheap lens. Her work falls below the quality of the work of the photobooth supplier.

After the judgement Chloe initially refused to pay. Then she sent two men to my front door to bully & intimidate me into accepting part payment. When I asked them to leave my property they refused. The police were subsequently called, during this time these men could see I had a ten month old baby in my arms. The remainder of the debt was recovered via bailiffs as Chloe refused to pay and only did so to avoid a further CCJ. I had to pay additional costs to get the bailiffs to recover monies owed.

To gain sympathy with readers Chloe has claimed that she fears for her life and has seen us waiting outside her property. She failed to disclose that she lives next to the Royal Mail delivery office for Bramley! This is where residents have to go to collect any parcels that arrive when they are out. We have had to collect two parcels from there this year, which hardly constitutes harassment!

Chloe claims to be against cyber bullying, yet she posted unkind and defamatory remarks about us online after we complained to her. This happened before we ever mentioned the dispute publically. All of this situation is Chloe's own doing. All we did was complain about our missing group photos and her taking the bride and matron of honour to the forest for a photoshoot while the groom was made to wait at the hotel. We never demanded a full refund. We simply tried to discuss our complaints with her but she would not accept any responsibility for the problems. So we went to court to ask a judge to determine how much we were owed and we were awarded a full refund and costs.

As a business she should listen to her customers. We know of two other couples unhappy with her work on their wedding day. We have been abused, called vile and references were made which disgusted me. Sadly court was the only option. We are shocked that Chloe has made an untrue statement online yesterday which seeks to absolve her of any blame for her own poor service. Chloe's website claimed that “each and every wedding is treated with individuality, care and love.” We have been treated terribly by Chloe Johnston.

Paul & Chareen Wheatley

14th April 2016

Below is our original statement submitted via the Small Claims Court website

Our claim against Chloe Johnston-Winterburn trading as Chloe Johnson Photography (CJP) revolves around the following issues:

Misrepresentation - We can prove that Chloe advertised extensively in Facebook wedding groups claiming to be a "reliable, experienced, creative, trustworthy female wedding photographer" who could "create stunning romantic photographs of the bride & groom" and “gorgeous wedding memories.”

We were urged to "allow C Johnson Photography to capture your day how you would like it to be captured" because “I base my packages around you… to ensure all your needs are met.” On her website we were reassured by phrases such as “Each and every wedding is treated with individuality, care and love. I work alongside you both to ensure we can create stunning and never ageing photographs. To ensure I capture all your minor details of your day I'm always there in the lead up to the wedding to help out where I can.”

We booked CJP on the basis of her online claims and paid £500 for 8 hours wedding photography booked for 13th September 2015. We believed that Chloe was a professional wedding photographer. We checked her website and Facebook page. We have now discovered that Chloe did not even bring any professional photographic equipment to our wedding. She came with a cheap consumer grade camera, a Nikon D7000 and cheap 18-105mm zoom lens. We don’t think she had a proper flash and do not remember one being used.

The lead up to the wedding was very stressful as after we paid the final balance in early August we found we were unable to contact Chloe again.

We posted on her Facebook page, emailed and phoned her but she was gone, we got no response. Chloe had asked us to make the payments via Paypal but use “friends and family” option which took away our chance to claim anything back from Paypal. We hadn’t realised Chloe was cheating us out of our paypal protection, she said she was just avoiding fees. In a panic we even arranged an emergency replacement for her by phoning a guest to ask them to step in as wedding photographer. Finally, at 11pm on 12th September, the night before the wedding, Chloe responded by text informing us that she would be attending.

The agreed start time was 11am but CJP did not arrive until around 12.15.

Due to Chloe not responding to any attempts to contact her before the wedding we were unable to have the pre-wedding meeting and discussions that we expected. Despite this, we were organised and supplied Chloe with a comprehensive written list of group photos and desired shots when she arrived at the venue. We have only received a portion of those. Several of the formal group photos are missing. The important "main group" of all guests together is of little use as it has been taken from too low an angle so that many people's faces can't be seen. This is due to the photographer's neglect in not finding a good place to take the photo. The venue provides two other good locations for the group photo which would have enabled all guests to be seen. We have obtained examples of these after searching online.

CJP failed to take into account the groom's disability when providing the wedding photography service. The extended time taken to arrange the main group on grass meant that the groom was in severe pain and this is evident by his expression on the few groups that were taken afterwards. Prior to moving onto the grassed area, Chloe was informed that the groom could only stand on hard ground comfortably.

The situation worsened when Chloe insisted she wanted to take us into the nearby forest to do the "stunning romantic photographs of the bride and groom" we had anticipated. The groom explained that due to his serious knee injury there was no way he could walk into the forest. Instead of taking more portraits at the hotel, Chloe persuaded the bride to go to the forest without the groom. She took the chief bridesmaid instead, while the groom was left for approx 45 minutes waiting at the hotel. He felt he could not go to the room to rest because he didn’t know when his wife would return, so he waited in the bar.

This experience had a negative impact on the groom’s enjoyment of the day and means that there are fewer nice couple photos than we expected. After delivery, we complained about the shortage of nice couple photos and Chloe blamed us for not spending enough time doing them!

Chloe has been trying to discredit us online and to the Police by stating that Mrs Chareen Wheatley said how happy she was with the photos and it's just Mr Paul Wheatley who later objected to the quality & service supplied. However, this is untrue. As the photos took so long to be delivered we kept contacting her asking for updates re progress and she sent over a couple of small selections which amounted to less than 10 photos in total. It is this small preview set that we liked and were happy with. We finally received the full set of images on a USB drive at 8.30pm on 22nd November, 9 weeks after the wedding. Our initial complaint was made on 25th November. There was no point after delivery of the images that we said we were satisfied with them.

Our package included an engagement shoot which we swapped for a Christening shoot for our baby. We have not received the images from this shoot at all.

Chloe claims that she has “fulfilled the contract” despite having never issued a contract. After our complaint, Chloe stated that her clients should expect 250-700 images from a full day wedding. We only have 276 and some of these are duplicates or watermarked web versions. We do not have 250 quality images of our wedding.

Initially we asked to discuss the matter and find some resolution due to the various issues we had:

Missing images

poor quality of images

failure to take into account the groom’s disability on the day

excessive delay in delivering the images

misrepresentation of her skills and experience

her bad attitude to our complaint

Chloe accused us of trying to grab money back from our wedding suppliers by faking complaints and refused to discuss our complaints or requests for a refund. She insists there is nothing wrong with her service or the product supplied.

We were sent screen shots by a local amateur photographer friend who saw her being disrespectful about us in a Facebook group.

After this we realised that we needed to take action via Small Claims court but when we went online to commence the claim we did not have an address for Chloe. That’s when we realised we should have been given a contract and proper trading address details for her. We texted Chloe to ask for her address but she refused to provide it. We believe there has been a breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in that CJP did not issue proper documentation, did not display any address anywhere online and refused to give us an address when it was requested.

We searched online but could find no address anywhere so turned to Facebook for help as we are not very internet savvy. A photographer in the Midlands discovered CJP’s domain was registered to an address at LS13 2EF but he warned us that on Google maps there did not seem to be any residential properties there. We drove to that address to see if we could spot a car we might recognise but it looked like industrial units and a pet shop.

We were left to plead for help on the Leedsface. Facebook group as a last resort. When we did that we were contacted by another of Chloe’s clients who explained they had to involve Trading Standards before managing to obtain their wedding photos.

As a result of our appeal for information Chloe called the Police and said we were harassing her. The Police have been phoning and coming to our house due to Chloe lying to them about our dispute.

As CJP refuse to deal with our complaint and have made insulting comments about us online we would like to bring the matter before the court to determine what compensation and refund we are due.

It can be found here: C Johnston Photography in Leeds, UK
Apparently the photographer also likes to "borrow" photos for her Facebook site.

 

[Light Guru]

Same person. C Johnston Photography in Leeds, UK

She didn't even use her own photos on her website.

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[astroNikon]

interesting, though long, read.
I guess she got her day in court to prove her side, and lost.

 

[Braineack]

again, don't hire a cheap 20yo without skills (photography, communication, etc.) to capture precious moments that you cannot recreate.

 

[jcdeboever]

I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

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[robbins.photo]

I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

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Hmmm.. depends. Saltines or cheeseits?

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[jcdeboever]

I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

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Hmmm.. depends. Saltines or cheeseits?

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I don't know. I stole the line from @limr, I still crack up every time I think about that comment. Couldn't wait to use it.... I did and I liked it....

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[robbins.photo]

I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

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Hmmm.. depends. Saltines or cheeseits?

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I don't know. I stole the line from @limr, I still crack up every time I think about that comment. Couldn't wait to use it.... I did and I liked it....

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Ok, fair enough. Lol

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[480sparky40 39]

Hmmmmm:

C Johnston Photography in Leeds, UK