Photobox Rant

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Little Man

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Sean
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I ordered a photo off Photobox, i've done this before and had no problems (ordered 38 photos - only ordered 2 this time), and paid for them on Tuesday night (30th Sep).

For anyone who doesn't know, Photobox say that if you pay before 4pm, your order gets dispatched the same day. I paid/ordered the photos at about 10pm Tuesday night, so I figured they'd get dispatched on Wednesday day, and would arrive Yesterday morning.

Photos didn't arrive yesterday morning. Fantastic.

Got an email yesterday afternoon saying the order had been dispatched, and was enroute. Great, I thought, would mean it would be here this morning.

Photos havn't arrived this morning.

Now normally, I wouldn't be too fussed, but one of the photos was going to be a present for a close friend of the family, he's 80 today and recently had to give away his border collie puppy, so the present was a photo of the puppy that I took a few months ago, to be presented in a nice frame.

So obviously, i'm not best pleased. I've now got no birthday present for him, which means i've got to get one, but wont be the one I really wanted to give him - he would have liked it a lot.

So, where do I go from here, do I kick off with Photobox, or is it Royal Mail that's gone tat's up?

Not impressed to say the least, sods law that something goes wrong when you need it.
 
Mental note 1 don't use Photo box they are a joke company.
Mental note 2 be more organised whn ordering presents.
Mental note 3 go to local photographic shop and get a print done today for the guys present.
Mental note 4 Kicking off will get you nowehere unless you have paid for a guarenteed delivery by a certain time/date which you haven't.
 
- Obviously, I realise that now.
- Only found out on Tuesday night it was his birthday today.
- Point taken, good idea.
- No, but it'll feel brilliant.
 
I don't think Photobox are a joke at all. They must have a massive turnover of printing and I am guessing this is why they can not guarantee same day printing. I have used them many times and never had a single problem, they went downhill for a while but seem to be back on old form with customer service etc. For what they offer I think they are excellent.

I think you have just been unlucky that you didn't receive your prints for when you wanted. As they use Royal Mail first class delivery I am guessing the delay from them to you would be down to royal mail. Were these big prints? Their large size prints come in tubes too large for the postman to carry and mine tend to be delivered separately by a post van.
 
The photo was 10x7 dude.

Photobox seem alright tbh, didn't have any problems last time and the prints were spot on, i'm just feeling annoyed and ranting, so today, photobox suck.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
I don't think Photobox are a joke at all. They must have a massive turnover of printing and I am guessing this is why they can not guarantee same day printing. I have used them many times and never had a single problem, they went downhill for a while but seem to be back on old form with customer service etc. For what they offer I think they are excellent.

I think you have just been unlucky that you didn't receive your prints for when you wanted. As they use Royal Mail first class delivery I am guessing the delay from them to you would be down to royal mail. Were these big prints? Their large size prints come in tubes too large for the postman to carry and mine tend to be delivered separately by a post van.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, certainly customer services are back on schedule, but QC is still a bit iffy. My dad was unsure between a photobook and a traditional album of wedding prints so as PB had an offer on A4 books, I ordered a couple just to give him an idea of what a book looks like before ordering a more ..err...shall we say 'upmarket' one. I didnt expect anything brilliant, but I did expect the pictures to be printed straight and the inner part of the book to be mounted straight within the hard cover...neither was the case, the pictures also showed signs of bleeding into the white backgrounds too.. I contacted them via email and they have replied quickly and very politely and with an offer to reprint or refund, so I have returned them for a refund. Its a crying shame because I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of the materials used and without the QC issues would be the best value for money around. Oh, they also arrived very quickly too, they made the point that during offer periods it can take upto 2 weeks for books, but I had them 3 days after ordering. Howevewr, in terms of the OP, I think this is a delivery issue, not photobox issue, but unless you are willing to pay for guarenteed delivery, there isn't really much you can do apart from take the image to a local printers and get it done in a couple of hours.
 
I ordered a few large format prints from PB which never arrived, they were fantastic, not only did they refund me but reprinted them and they arrived the next day. they do deal with large volumes of orders (victims of their own success?) and as a result a few slip ups are inevitable, they have always responded brilliantly to correct any errors whether their own or delivery companies. given delivery can be a problem at times, out of PB's control, my advice is if you have a approaching deadline perhaps seek local/walk-in printers for piece of mind?
 
Managed to get it sorted.

Sent them a quick email explaining, they said they had problems with the printing machine and my order had been sent out today, not yesterday as told via email. They've refunded me the cost of the photos and appologised for the mis-hap.

That'll do me.
 
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Glad you got it sorted, naughty of them to send a dispatch email without actually sending them though :(
 
used to sue them all the time until quality went down.... i use them now and again when needs must.. the last time being when I wanted 50 prints.. ordered them and they arrived in a couple of days.. quality was far better than when i stopped using them so was quite pleased.....

About a month later I got an email from them saying the order had been dispatched... hmmm :)
 
Hank - Definatly exciting fella, i've been shooting for just under 2 years and only had my first prints done a month ago. Definatly gives you a good feeling when you see your shots in print.

JL - Yeah mate, I agree with it being a tad naughty.
 
I've used them a lot, had a couple of run-ins with them but so far I'm happy with the prints. Just got back a batch today (Friday) which were ordered Wednesday evening. They've done some 30x20s for me which were brilliant. One time I had a batch of 500 6x4s and they printed the same one 87 times. Obviously they credited me back.

I've had the biggest trouble with their photobooks. The first time I had some - a batch of four back in January - it took me a week to design them. Four browser crashes (with Opera, Firefox and IE7) and layouts lost. Stupid quirks and irritations about the design process and book options. I've just given them another go with a fairly simple small book and I gave up and went elsewhere. I did, however, this time, put a rant in to words and send it off. Maybe they'll listen. The books were actually very good and everybody is impressed. Very good price too, when they have one of their 2 for 1 offers or similar.
 
I use them a lot & have had loads of the photobooks, I had 1 poor quality, with the last 4 pages blurred, 1 phone call & a replacement arrived in 2 days, never had any probs with quality or delivery on prints.
 
Hi,

I have ordered from Photobox a photobook, and paid for them twice!.

The Photos book didn't arrive at all. I have to call them several time to ask about the status of my order. Wait for 45minutes for each call made. Finally, they refund.

Now normally, I wouldn't be too fussed, but the photos book was going to be a present to my mom for her birthday! They let me down and I'm unable to get a replace for the gift.

Photobox is unreliable and unprofessional company. They should not be trust if you need an urgent photo or gifts.
 
well i use them all the time i have never had a problem with any prints.

orders always come on time or early..:clap:

so all i can do is go on personal experiance .

big thumbs up for me :thumbs:

in fact i have just ordered .

2 A3's
7 A4's

and a load of 9x6's

looking forward to getting themn early next week...:naughty:


md:thumbs:
 
I generally find Photobox very good - last lot were a bit dark but I edited them on a different machine so it was probably me. Just for a test though I re-edited and ordered them, along with some other prints from Dscolourlabs and was very pleased with the colours and clarity of the prints. Have tried a couple of other places but not really been satisfied.
 
I had a very similar problem recently...

Needed a print sent to a customer quickly so paid £9.99 for their "Special Delivery" service, guaranteed next day before 1pm, you guessed it - nothing arrived. Spoke to them that day & was told they had a "printer problem" - in the end the print took 3 days, all they did was refund the postage...

my experiences with Photobox are increasingly negative and having found DSCL & had very good service from them Photobox are off my list !!

http://www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/index.cfm

simon
 
I heard yesterday that a couple of photobooks I got made up for a friend's hair salon (examples of their bridal hair work) are falling apart after 6 months. I haven't seen them yet but will pop along when I get the chance but it doesn't sound very good :(
 
I've not ordered that much stuff from them, but in general I have found them good. I ordered 4 photobooks last week, one came with a small tear on one page. I emailed them, they've sent another one out quickly and without any hassle.

Every company can make mistakes, it's how they deal with them that I tend to judge them, unless they're messing up on a regular basis, which isn't my experience with Photobox.

Dave
 
I tend to farm my prints out between Photobox, DSCL and Loxley Colour these days.

Loxley are by far the best quality-wise, I use them for anything I'm selling on. Photobox are great with their offers, and DSCL are just all-round decent...
 
I would never ever ever ever use photobox again.

last xmas, I did a family portraight for somebody, send the image to photobox and ordered 2x 15 x 11.

They came back with a horrible orange cast on them. I thought WTF is going on, checked the pic in Ps and it was fine, took them to a local lab printed again, they were fine. emailed photobox to complain, to be told we remove profiles (how woudl that add an orange cast???) and they would refund the credit. They DID NOT refund the credit, and I have never used the cowboys again.

lesson learned the hard way, but I would definatly not recomend them to anybody. They may be fine for 6x4 cheap prints but it just simply isnt worth the risk
 
The print I had done was 10x7 and came out well, so i'm happy for the minute. Will see how we go though when I eventually order some more.
 
I'm fortunate that I only live about 10 mins away from Photobox. Everytime I order, I've emailed them immediately after to say I want to collect. That way I've always managed to pick it up rather than waiting for delivery and can check the quality of print whilst at their offices.

On the previous occasions where they may have messed up my order, they were quick to refund and replace the order.
 
Just orderd another 10x7 print, should hopefully be here tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.
 
Apart from peak times I've found them to be really good. Service went seriously downhill last Christmas though. The OPs issue sounds as much down to Royal Mail to be honest, First Class isn't guaranteed to be next day, and should never be assumed to mean as much.

My biggest issue with Photobox is that twice in a year I've received other peoples holiday photos, which in this ultra sensitive age is really not good. Photobox were very uninterested in the issue and just told me to 'throw them in the bin'. My own items didn't arrive, so I assumed they also went to the wrong address. On the second occasion I took it upon myself to write a letter to the person on the invoice (their address was on it), cut a long story short it turned out she had my missing order (10 calendars), so we exchanged our orders before Photobox had even managed to re-dispatch our items.
 
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You always have to allow for human error. It's inevitable, and when it happens, just stop and think for a minute - are you that perfect? Seems to me more and more people in this day and age don't want their stuff tomorrow, they want it today. In fact, yesterday would have been better! Order your stuff in plenty of time, or cough up for a guaranteed delivery service;)

Sheer stupidity doesn't count of course...(CityLink leaving a D200 on the back doorstep in the snow is a perfect example)
 
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