Photobox rip off merchants

JMcL

I've recommended Photobox here and elsewhere on a number of occasions, and have had issues with them in the past over their absurd delivery charges. But I want to warn anybody thinking about ordering to pay very close attention to their prices.

Yesterday I wanted to get a bunch of 12x8 prints done, so as usual, I started via their Irish web site. This was (and still is at the time of writing) advertising 12x8s at €1.75/€1.67/€1.58 for orders of 1, 5, and 20+ images respectively. I spent a couple of hours uploading about 25 images, and by chance looked at the unit price they were charging me before checkout, which was €1.72 (supposed to be €1.58) Delving a bit further, being now logged in, their UK website was showing prices of €1.90 per print, and the aforementioned €1.72 for 20+ (bear in mind their Irish website is still showing the lower prices).

This, to my eyes, is false advertising, and over 24 hours later they have yet to reply to my query (so much for 24 hour email support). They are a high enough profile company and have been pushing themselves enough in this country that this should not happen

Above and beyond that, doing a bit of maths, their current UK price is £1.20. At current and prevailing exchange rates that works out to €1.60 - until you read further into their web site and discover that UK prints are charged VAT at 17.5%, while prints for Ireland are charged at 13.5%. This means the price we should be paying is €1.54, which means they're gouging us for an extra 25% give or take, or to put it another way, a sizeable chunk of the cost of a 12x8 from Aldi (whose quality is not bad). They may bleat about higher deliver charges, but they make sure they cover themselves for that on on top of this. (Note : my exchange rate here is the actual rate that you would pay with Visa for a sterling sale, not the official exchange rate)

So yes, this is a rant on my part, but their gouging is outrageous, and the wrong pricing is at best unforgivable, and at worst may be contrary to the consumer protection act

sasar

I also have had a bad experience with Photobox.

Ordered large prints for the exhibition and the quality was just awful! BW shots and had some pink-ish colour all over them.

Wrote them a complaint and got a redo, this time the quality was ok.

Arciphel

thanks lads, good to know, i was going to put in an order with them today for some large prints but think i will be looking elsewhere now.

DaireQuinlan

Arciphel wrote: »

thanks lads, good to know, i was going to put in an order with them today for some large prints but think i will be looking elsewhere now.

Wellll, in fairness to photobox, in my experience you'll be hard put to find a good alternative. Its been about 2 years since I did a big comparison of the 4 or 5 major online print guys (basically used their introductory offers of 10/20 free prints to get the same pics printed from each vendor for comparison), and I found photobox to be far and away the best, both in terms of image quality, and responsiveness to queries. I've used them since for prints both large and small and never had any complaints. That said, I can confirm that problem that JMcL is complaining about above, and I've ALSO encountered the stupid postage issue, but never mailed them about it.

I'd say that if you did a straw poll around here you'd find a lot more people with good impressions of photobox than bad. OTOH, as I said above, its been 2 years since i ran that test, maybe success has been their downfall ...

Thirdfox

fujipix.ie's service was pretty good - the exposure came out just a tad darker than on screen but colours were rich and vibrant otherwise...

quilmore

foto.com for me

JMcL

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Wellll, in fairness to photobox, in my experience you'll be hard put to find a good alternative. Its been about 2 years since I did a big comparison of the 4 or 5 major online print guys (basically used their introductory offers of 10/20 free prints to get the same pics printed from each vendor for comparison), and I found photobox to be far and away the best, both in terms of image quality, and responsiveness to queries.

Daire in terms of quality, I've no issue, it's very good indeed. I'd disagree with their being responsive. I'm still waiting for anything other than an automated "We've received your email, it's very important to us blah, blah" nearly 2 days later after emailing them on something which I'd be fairly concerned about if I were them.

Moving beyond all that, I won't be using them again after doing the sums and figuring out what they should be charging us versus what they do. Let us pay sterling and let VISA take care of the FX. They're just yet another UK company (and, for balance, some Irish ones who've recently removed dual price tags who shall remain nameless) making out like bandits on the exchange rate

ThirdFox wrote:

fujipix.ie's service was pretty good - the exposure came out just a tad darker than on screen but colours were rich and vibrant otherwise...

Cheers,I'll have a look at them

I do like foto.com as well, though only for larger sizes (I find they oversharpen small pics). Other than that the only problem is their delivery time can be a bit of a lottery, though that might be at least partly down to An Post

delly

/thread hijack

Just curious to know about delivery times from photobox. My order was dispatched on Monday the 2nd, yet has not arrived. I know the UK postal system aint the best, but at this stage i reckon my pics have gone AWOL.

kcphoto

I have used photobox frequently for all types and sizes of prints and generally the quality has been very good. Delivery times tend to vary from a few days to maybe 10 working days (anything other than standard small prints seem to take longest).

The delivery charge for my usual items ( some 12x8 prints and some 6x4's) has always been about €3.50 for the last few months. Just placed a similar order today and the delivery charge is €5.51 ????
That's a hell of a jump!

delly

Well after 2 weeks my prints haven't arrived so i emailed there support. They came back and said they would resend them which i think is fair enough.

garbanz0

I use photoweb.ie, based in Grants in Baggot St.

A more personal service, of course, costs more.

unreggd

Here, whats goin on with Photobox's posting service?

I used to get my pics 3/4 days after being dispatched, but my last 2 orders took 13 days to get here

Gonna call them and ask why its takin so long

Fajitas!

I've had them take both 2 days to deliver, and 2 months... A bit unreliable, especially if relying on them for work.

JMcL

I still haven't had a proper reply from them (haven't chased them mind you), and out of curiousity have just looked at their .ie site. Two weeks later, it's still showing the wrong prices.The only way you see the price they're actually going to charge you is to get to the checkout stage, and at that stage it'd be easy to skip over it and just pay. Shocking

Re quality, their print quality is better than any of their direct competitors, it's the rest of the operation that's not up to scratch.

Delivery wise, I've usually gotten anything I've ordered within about a week

stcstc

if anyone is stuck for prints let me know i will be able to help you out

although i wont be as cheap as photobox, i will produce as good quality as it gets


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