Reporter: Brad Gustafson Broadcast Date: 10.09.07
We ought to know by now there’s no such thing as a "free lunch". But it hasn’t stopped people hoping, especially when the true cost isn’t revealed until later.
Single mum Debbyanne Brice entered a shopping centre competition being run by photographic company Studio 2000.
"I just asked them is there any obligation to buy and they just kept telling me there is no obligation to buy anything. Next thing we know, we got a phone call from Studio 2000 saying that you have won our competition and that you’re going to get a free sitting."
Young mum Jess Hannigan also won a free Studio 2000 photo shoot after entering a competition she saw on tv.
"You hear about them all the time. You always see them on TV. When you go in there, they tell you that they’re the best so you believe them, you think that they are the best," explained Jess.
For both ladies, the trouble began when they returned to view their prints. Gone were the friendly photographers, and in their place, fast-talking sales staff.
"I think they take advantage of people that are not used to sales people. They know how to really sell that pitch across to you, that these photos are beautiful, you have to buy them, you’re so stunning," says Debbyanne.
During the quite often lengthy sales sessions, customers are shown prints and slides, and told just how beautiful their photos turned out.
Then comes the hard sell. The sitting might have been free, but here’s the catch, the price of the portfolios can be anything from $1500 to $30,000 dollars.
Debbyanne says: "I was just like: ‘I can’t afford this’. I expect to pay some money for photos but not $11,000. I said this will put me out on the street."
First a sales consultant tries their hand, then the manager is called in.
Jess said of her experience: "I’d been in there, for, I think, it was about close to two hours by that time. And I was crying, and I was shaking, I just wanted to get out of there."
Which is when the manager hit Jess with this: "She looked at me straight in the face and she goes if your baby died, wouldn’t you like a nice funeral photo for him. It was just awful. It was, I mean I was in there for so long and then to have them say something like that to me it was just awful."
Jess got out, only buying one photo.
Debbyanne however, wasn’t so strong. The package they signed her up for cost more than $11,000.
"I wasn’t given any other options at all. Like it was either if I wanted the photos I had to pay $11,000 or pretty much I didn’t get the photos."
Even though there were cheaper options, Debbyanne says she felt she had little choice.
"I knew as soon as I signed the contract it was absolutely stupid. I knew there was no way I could even afford to pay that contact. Like I probably would have been paying it for the rest of my life," said Debbyanne.
While the contract has a warning that customers shouldn’t sign unless they are certain of what they are doing, once they’ve signed they are committed.
Donna James knows these tactics all too well.
Donna told us: "Tthey’re not interested in making you look beautiful, or giving you decent photos. They’re just interested in taking your money."
While she’s not referring to Studio 2000 she has worked for a photographic studio in Sydney and was so disgusted by their behaviour, she quit.
"Mainly young mothers I was told to target and say to them: ‘oh, you have nice looking children, have they ever had their photos taken? We specialise in children’s photography’."
Donna worked from stands in shopping centres and was supposedly giving away entries to win a $1500 photographic package.
"We found out there was no such competition and that my boss would ring the people back and offer them other packages that would actually cost money. Instead of calling them entries, he’d say: ‘oh, we’ve got leads. Can you get me some more leads. Can you get me another 15 leads’."
Today Tonight entered Studio 2000’s competition, and surprise, surprise, we won a free sitting.
At the viewing session, they tried selling our actor a package worth more than $23,000, but they said they’d give it to us for the bargain price of just under $11,000. What a saving.
Then, a trainee sales consultant told our actor to buy the photos, and not tell her husband. In the end the cheapest thing we could by was a 4 x 3 print and it cost $198.
Consumer Affairs Minister Jennifer Rankine says the activities of Studio 2000 have been brought to the attention of her Department.
"We’ve had, the Office of Consumer Affairs tell me, 40 complaints over the last three or four years. You need to look at what the end cost of that is going to be. It’s not appropriate for people to be pressured into signing contracts," she said.
They’ve also come to Today Tonight’s attention in the past. We first investigated Studio 2000 back in 1997, when a judge labelled their tactics immoral and quite wrong.
And if the experiences of Debbyanne and Jess are any guide, it appears not much has changed.
As a member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers, Studio 2000 agree to the code of ethics, which says they won’t use any high pressure tactics, and will allow a three day cooling off period.
And yet their contracts state they cannot be cancelled or altered.
State AIPP President David Sievers urges anyone who’s had unhappy dealings with Studio 2000 to make an official complaint. If the complaints are upheld, they’ll review Studio 2000’s membership.
Actions of companies like studio 2000 have also prompted Consumer Affairs to review their legislation.
We made several attempts to contact the company, but they didn’t want to talk to us.
They’ve left that to their unhappy customers, and there’s many more that have contacted Today Tonight but didn’t wish to appear on camera.
Both Debbyanne and Jess hope that people can learn from their experiences.
Studio 2000 Follow � aired 12/09/07
Monday night we told you how Adelaide’s Studio 2000 lured people with free photo shoots then charged them thousands for prints.
We were then contacted by many more unhappy clients and a former employee.
Sue’s 20 year old son Andrew went in for a "free" photo shoot earlier this year and came out of the viewing session with a bill for more than five thousands dollars.
"For vulnerable people like Andrew, as you can see he was born with a few, he won’t mind me saying that, born with a few deformities so I think what they did was honed in on him, made him look really good, and of course that makes you feel better doesn’t it," said Sue.
When you hear Andrew’s story, you can’t help but feel sorry for him.
Andrew says: "They told me right from the start as soon as I walked in the door, please switch off my mobile phone off. I was saying: ‘I don’t want to do this’. I actually said I only want to buy one photo, I actually said that. I remember saying I only wanted to buy one photo."
But they told Andrew he was getting more than $10,000 worth of value, for the special price of just under $4000. And the sales team didn’t stop there. There was another product he apparently had to have.
"We were about to walk out the door and they gave it a mention and they wouldn’t shut up about it and then they got the manager involved. You can go on this yacht cruise which will cost you $1300 and I said: ‘I don’t want to pay any more than I’ve already paid’. I said: ‘how about we negotiate it for $50’? and they just took me back into the room and negotiated again.
But he ended up paying what they wanted for that one.
"It’s a yacht shoot. So what’s going to happen? They’re going to take more photos. So he’s not going," said his mother.
Debbie Vatsinaris spent 12 months working for Studio 2000, but left when the high pressure tactics became too much to bare.
"Your job is to sell them the top package, and that’s what they expect you to do. I would have people in tears on the phone saying: ‘I can’t afford this’, and you’d have to say: ‘well, you’ve signed a contract’. And they had signed a contract, and that’s the whole point. They have signed a contract," says Debbie.
The alarming thing is Studio 2000 seem to operate well within the law.
But you do wonder why they ask people sign a statement agreeing that their consultant was sincerely professional and allowed the customer to exercise their own free will.
"She was very convincing in selling us the most expensive package right from the start," says another customer, Jo Filsell. "I don’t think we had any options. I think she only gave us the one option."
Jo and her daughter Jenni were told their photos were one in a million�good enough, in fact, for Studio 2000’s advertising�but only if they spent more money.
Jo was told if they paid to have the photos digitally enhanced, they could use them in one of their adverts.
A promise that sounded good, so they did it.
But thousands of dollars later Jo says: "We watched all the ads, ’cause you would, and we never saw it. They sent us a copy of the ad but they were supposed to send us also a list of times for when the ad would be shown and they never sent that. And other people that we know that also had their photos done at Studio 2000 at the same time they were told the same thing: ‘that your photos were special and we want to use you in an ad’, so it was just a marketing thing."
Consumer Affairs confirmed they’ve had a flood of complains following our story on Monday night, and they’re continuing their investigation.