Sears Portrait Studio

Sorry to say that our experience with the Portrait Studio was a disaster. We went in to have portraits taken of our 9 month old son, so that we could give framed pictures of him to his grandparents for Christmas. What a mistake.
I have to say the actual experience of taking the shots was good. The guy was really nice and seemed to know what he was doing when it came to taking the pictures. After that though, the whole experience went South.
We were bombarded with package deals — bronze, silver, gold, but rather than these being presented on official Sears literature they were presented on hand written flash cards. It was so confusing and so unprofessional, leaving us to wonder if we were getting the best deal or whether we were in fact being totally oversold. We settled on the gold package.
We then had to choose our photos, which took ages. All we got to look at was little thumbnail pictures and from this decide on the best photos to use. Little did we know that this was our approval process. We went ahead and chose our photos and then painstakingly selected the «mix» of products we were going to buy in our chosen package. We walked out being told the prints should be ready in 2 weeks at the latest, and we would be called as soon as the prints were ready for pick-​up.
Nearly a month later and we had heard nothing, so I called, to be told that they will call me back as they have no idea on the status of our order. Three hours later we were told the pictures were ready but had been filed under a different customer’s name. Great!
This is when things got really bad. On reviewing the pictures in the store we couldn’t use any of them. In every picture our son looked like he had a black eye, add to that the fact that there were marks on the background of every photo (which were marks on the actual backdrop in the room where the photos were taken). So we had spent over $ 250 for nothing.
We asked why the pictures hadn’t been cleaned up, to be told that they don’t have Photoshop so they can’t do this. Great — how professional is that?
So to make a long story long — not only were the products useless, but the customer service was a disaster. When a customer complains surely there should be some semblance of empathy. Not here! We were told with a shrug of the shoulders that there is nothing they can do as we approved the end product. Well if you don’t get to see the end product before you approve them how on earth can you do that?
All this for over $ 250. Thanks but no thanks, we will never use them again, and we will go out of our way to ensure that none of our friends, acquaintances or even enemies ever even think of using this service.