Thomas Cook Photography

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  • Any photographers in the Florida area familiar with this guy? He was at Holiday Matsuri 2013 doing green screen photos for rather inexpensive prices. Since I was photographerless due to some stupid crap that's still going on, I figured that $5 for two photos was a steal. He was also at conventions formal ball doing portraits for $2 (I think something like that) and donations were to go to Toys for Tots.
    However, after several emails later trying to get a hold of this guy, it seems he pretty much stole my money as well as money from several other cosplayers. Is there anything that can be done to put a fire under his butt to either get what I paid for or to get my money back? I have emailed the convention, as well as other people, and the photographer, and even sent messages on facebook and posting to his wall, and this is quite frustrating to have this happen. I guess I just have really bad luck with photographers >.>

  • This is what happens when you go for random cheap crap (yes, he's a piece of crap). You'll get burnt more times than not.

  • Have you tried calling him? It is possible your emails are tripping his spam filter for some reason. His phone number is on his website.

    Did you get anything in writing? ie a receipt? Without that, you don't really have any proof that you paid anything, or that he agreed to provide anything in return for your "donation".

    You could file a claim in small claims court, which will cost you a lot more than you gave him. But without a receipt, it would almost certainly get thrown out (unless he was a complete idiot and admitted he took your money and agreed to provide something in return).

    It's things like this that demonstrate why model releases, receipts, usage agreements, etc are so important. These days it can all easily be done electronically too (there are free Android and iOS apps), so there's really no excuse for not doing it. Anyone who gives me money (cash or credit, I don't take checks) gets a receipt. A copy gets saved in the app's database, and it automatically emails a copy to the client and myself. Same goes for usage agreements and model releases (different app, but same process).