SHAWN K
WOW. We have almost the exact story as Bernardo Lugo. We used Nik's services on 3 occasions. He did a great job on our engagement pictures & had them printed for our wedding. We got our digital images (only) of our wedding & printed our own small prints for our home. Then, we hired Nik for updated family pictures. We loved the previews. Nik has a great eye for photography AND is a wiz at editing. BUT, we have no pictures from this session. Over FIVE months ago, I paid $685 for two large prints with rush delivery. On delivery day, I didn’t hear from Nik. When I texted him, he said they didn’t arrive on time & that he’d make it up to us by giving us all our digital images and some smaller prints for free. We have made many attempts to get our prints from Nik. He either doesn't answer our calls/texts or he hangs up on us, says he can't hear us, is out of town or has been sick. Things happen & we've been patient, but in 5 months, he should’ve gotten us our pictures. We’ve also never received the promised digital images. We are out nearly $1000 & have zero pictures to show for it. We’ve been very patient & understanding with his many reasons for not being available, but at this point we would no longer recommend Nik's services. UPDATE: Above review originally posted 10/2022. No surprise: Nik called us 11/2022 with a long story that his equipment and our prints were stolen. He promised AGAIN to give us the digital copies (which he had not delivered on, as above), plus a USB drive with the high-resolution images, a copyright release, our canvas prints (paid for in May 2022), & to NOT ghost us again. Multiple times, he asked us to take down our review, saying it was affecting his business. He promised the digital images within 4 days & the prints within 2 weeks. On day 8, Nik sent a link to the digital images, which didn’t appear to have any edits. Hoping this was a sign of good faith from Nik, we removed the review, even though we were still awaiting our prints. We didn’t ask for any of the things he offered; we just wanted our prints. After 5 weeks (Jan. 2023), he STILL hadn’t delivered our prints (promised within 2 weeks), nor communicated about a delay. WE then contacted Nik again & he stated he was still waiting on the prints because he ordered them during the holidays. We called/texted several more times to follow up with him through March with zero response back from him. By this time, we were just short of one year since we had paid $685 for “expedited shipping” guaranteed to be delivered by May 8, 2022. We were busy with our own jobs & somewhat resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d never get our prints. We eventually pursued getting other pictures, but have been unable to let go of the fact that he stole $685 from us. So, here we are 2 MORE years later (nearly 3 years since we paid him for our prints) & called Nik to request a refund. Surprisingly, he took our call. He requested the invoices to “remind” him. We texted & emailed them & he confirmed receipt. He then said a refund was not possible & there was a loss on his side because of his shoot time, which we paid $350 for, & his hours of editing – the only edits made were in the two images supposed to be printed, which we don’t have. They were very minor & likely took a pro like him a few minutes, at most. He also said it was not a “walk away with nothing” situation for us, as we received the digital images. Again, we never asked for the digital images. He emailed a link to them as some kind of peace offering or something. Facts are: we paid $685 for two canvas prints. We never received them, despite MANY follow-ups on our part. And, he stopped just short of blaming US for not following up with him enough, saying his contact information is publicly available & that it had been a “very long time” since he had been contacted. HE is the business owner, who willingly took our money. HE should have been responsible for following up until the prints were delivered.
