In short, Clix portrait studio uses high pressure sales tactics to take advantage of customers by selling them mediocre product at inflated prices. After the sale, if you're not happy with this treatment, not only are they unapologetic, they are likely to blame you, accuse you of theft and attempting to "run them into the ground". If you care about your time, money, and getting a decent product, go to a professional photographer that cares about you and delivering a good product, and not just how much profit they can extract from your wallet.
At least, that's what we learned from our experience. My wife went to Clix for pictures of our 6 month old son after our neighbor gave us a coupon. Only later did we understand that Clix gives deals to customers that pass out these coupons, so our neighbor wasn't exactly doing us a favor.
She calls up Clix. "Oh, tomorrow is available," they tell her, "We can discuss the packages when you come in. We're a bit busy with customers right now." That should have been the first red flag: unwilling to discuss their pricing on the phone, but the neighbor did recommend them, so my wife made the appointment.
"So how does this work? What is the pricing like?" she asks the photographer when she arrives. "Oh, gee. Your little boy is so happy right now. Let's take the pictures now while he is smiling. We can discuss packages afterwards." Red flag number two: still reluctant to discuss pricing. But she was there and really wanted a nice experience - its our first son and all. So the photographer clicks a bunch of photos with a digital camera. He smiles for a bit but gets tired and starts to fuss. The photographer continues to click pictures. In another few minutes the little guy is crying and my wife calls an end to the session.
The photographer flips through the pictures on a monitor for my wife. A few are precious but "I'm going to need to come back to look at the pictures. He needs to get home for his nap," she explains. "Oh, we don't keep the pictures after you leave," says the photographer, "You have to buy a package now before you leave or the photos are gone." Ok, so NOW the photographer explains the various packages and pricing. They involve increasing numbers of images and processing for increasing prices. And the coupon from the neighbor for a full sheet of prints for 8$? Oh, that's only valid with purchase of a "package". Apparently, she now has to pick selected images for a package, and only those are kept; the rest are gone. My wife is now frustrated at having spent hours on this endeavor, only to be told that she now needs to take time, right now while the baby is crying, to go through each image of her baby and decide which to destroy and which to keep. "Can't I come back later when he has calmed down? It's hard to decide when he needs my attention," she implores. "Sorry, you have to pick something now. Of course, you could get the 'deluxe' package. It will include all the images from the session and you can come back tomorrow or later and choose what to print." Fine. How much is that? $300. Way more than she wanted to spend, but she figures she can exchange for something more reasonable if necessary once she has time to go though the pictures. So she leaves with a CD of images, $300 lighter, the one print from the neighbor's coupon, and a crying infant.
Later, she goes through the pictures. There are about 50 of them, and many are of him looking off or making faces. He's an infant, after all. The quality of the images is ok - decent lighting, a few cute props, and taken with a mid-range Canon Digital SLR -- the kind of camera an amateur hobbiest has but not exactly high-end professional. Only a few of the images are really worth keeping and even those could use a touch up or two.
She calls Clix and asks them if she can get prints of those. "Oh, you can print them here, or anywhere. Costco. Wherever you like. You just pay for the prints." Turns out the 'deluxe' package doesn't include prints, just raw, untouched digital images.
This is not what we want or expected. There's been a mistake. We talk to the owners, C &A. We'd like to buy something that has the images we want and some prints, we explain. Sorry. No Refunds, partial or otherwise. If you want prints, you have to pay extra for them. We can get "store credit" if we like for another photo shoot and they assume we have copied all the images from the CD and are trying to steal from them by asking for a refund. We talk a few times, hoping they will be reasonable. Doesn't matter. They are inflexible, unapologetic, and get self-righteous. My sweet wife ends up in tears she is so upset about the awful experience: the first photo shoot of her first child, truly ruined and an awful memory. They don't seem to care about that either.
There are decent photographers and studios out there that care about their customers and their product. Please find one and go there. read more
