Last month, Farrah had her newborn baby pictures taken. She is very photogenic and quite the little model. It was a fun experience and I was lucky enough to have used a photographer that had a digital camera so I could get a sneak peek at what the pictures would look like. Well, for the past couple weeks, the person who sells the pictures has been trying to schedule a time to meet up with me to place my order. We finally touched base last night and scheduled a meeting today from 12:30 to 1:30 with the hopes that maybe Mike could attend.
I rushed out of work and made it home at exactly12:30 with my daughter. It was her lunch time as well as mine, so I fed her while I waited. I waited, and then waited some more. I called her twice and she didn't answer her phone. At 1:00, she finally arrived. I was a little irritated, needless to say, since I don't like to go over my lunch break time too much and I was now left with 30 minutes. I knew I would just have to arrive later at work to realistically do this.
The lady went over the deals with me and shared how great their pictures were. And they were, but the prices weren't. I felt I was buying photos with little pieces of gold inserted into the paper. The package that had the works which included a framed 10 x 25 photo (or something like that), a 20 x somthing, all the photos in 5 x 7, all the photos in wallet size, a CD, and some other stuff. That was $800!!! WTF?! She went down the list and everything she said went in one ear and out the other. I just stopped listening. Like hell if I was going to spend that kind of money. The cheapest package: 3 - 5 x 7s and 1- 8 x 10 and that was $175. When she was finished, I told her that there was no way that I was pulling out my checkbook to pay for any of this. I needed to speak to my husband about it and see what we could do. They didn't offer anything where you could simply order the individual items you wanted; you had to purchase a package. She kept saying I thought your husband was going to be here. You said he would be here. In fact, I never did say that at all. I told her he would try to be here.
She didn't have any brochures and told me that she wasn't able to come out again and this would be the only time we could purchase. I was pissed off. I told her I thought the prices were outragious and I didn't think that there were any good deals in what she was offering. She then stated that if I wanted to go have photos done at Walmart to get a better deal, that was always an option but I wouldn't get near the quality. I said I'm not looking at buying crap either, I simply felt she needed to have it set up differently so people didn't feel like they had to buy on the spot. Had I known that was how it was going to be, I would have gone a different direction for our pictures. She then told me I probably should've asked her how the sales pitch would go when I was on the phone with her in the first place. Our friendly, yet not friendly bantering went back and forth for a good ten minutes while she packed her stuff to leave.
Finally, she took a deep breath and made me an offer that made a whole lot more sense than the BS she was trying to sell. She basically tied in one of the middle packages that are usually $500 and sold it to me at the $200 price. I'm not stupid. I know her packing her stuff to leave was part of her act to get me to break and ultimately have her finally give me the true offer. I believe they set it up to see if there are idiots there that would pay these horrible prices thinking this is the best they can get and that they're stuck losing their newborn's pictures if they don't. That's what pissed me off. I was ready to open the door and send her on her way without any pictures of Farrah, but it would've killed me. It's not like I could go back a month and get those shots again. She was already bigger than she was then.
The company was called "Growing Family". Do NOT buy from them. They are in the business of extortion. They hire people who don't have children to basically hold the photos of your babies hostage for an outragious ransom. If the sales people did have children of their own, they would be considered the devil. Shame on that company for putting several families through hell to get the pictures of their kids. They know we love our children like crazy so it makes us weak when it comes to spending money. Most of us have just written big checks for hospital bills, formula, diapers, and doctor appointments. Bastards.
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