Portraits USA LLC Scammed me out of my money! Atlanta Georgia

In September of this year, Portraits USA decided to come to our local Bi-Lo grocery store. When walking through the door, you were greeted with two friendly men, dressed to appeal. With an offer hard to pass down of 10$ for 13 wallet sized pictures I decided why not? My daughter would be a great candidate for these! So I went ahead and gave them my name and they scheduled me an appointment for a later date.

About two weeks later, we came back to the grocery store to get our pictures taken. I found it peculiar that they were stationed in the break room. I put this behind me though, because it was time to take our pictures. I was informed there was an additional sitting fee of $6 at this time. Unknowingly of this information before this day, I went ahead and paid them the $6 because the pictures were already paid for.

The photographer was a creep. Not dressed appropriately for a photographer in my opinion. My daughter never even smiled in the pictures. In order to calm her down, I had to step in a few of the poses with her. I never knew what color the background was either because I was informed there was a “no picture preview”.

About a month later, we were able to come back and get the pictures. I was disappointed when the woman showed me the only pictures we got were some itty bitty microscopic wallet sized photos. I’ve never seen wallet sized photos so small in my life! They seemingly chose the worse pose for the wallet size. Go figure at this point it seemed. Then, the woman selling me the pictures pulled out the rest of the photographs from a big white envelope. Of course, these were better photographs. Not the best I had ever seen in my life.. A blue background that didn’t match what we were wearing, poor sepia and black and white editing. Font in the right corner was a hideous yellow “Portraits USA” logo.

Nevertheless, I decided I should get them anyway. After all, I had went through all the trouble for my 2 year old toddler to get her first ever pictures taken. When asking if there was a good deal on packages, the woman informed me there was only ONE package I could get! I was in disbelief at this point. I could hardly believe there was only one package I was able to get, due to the fact this is supposed to be a business! They do this for a living. She told me if I wanted to break the payments down, and make a partial payment this day I would be able to work with them on that, and then she pulled out a larger picture in a lovely frame. She told me if I went through with it, they would fed-ex the picture to me once the payments were made. I agreed. The woman than proceeded to tell me there was a $1 charge to use a credit card, and I had to write my information down for future payments. Once again, more money.. but at this point I was just ready to get the pictures I already had.. and they had already pressured me into this “great deal” I thanked the woman for giving me the pictures she did that day and I left.

For a day out of the week, every two weeks they took money off of my card, without my permission. I cancelled my credit card, and decided to use another person’s in the family so that maybe they wouldn’t dare do that. I made one payment off of a relative’s card, and then the next time they decided to take it upon themselves to take off an additional payment!  With no authorization at this point, we decided to call them to see what was going on. The woman at the desk was a very rude young lady. Claiming they didn’t have a manager we could speak to about the issue and there was no number anyone with a high authority could be reached on. No address either, when researching this company.  Angry at this point, I called the next day to get to the bottom of this. Where is my picture in the frame anyway? I only had half of a payment left, but they claimed I owed more than what was originally established in the beginning of the transaction. I have each transaction on record, but they are still trying to scam me. I have yet to see my bigger picture, but after seeing reviews online for what type of company they are, I have a good feeling I never will.. Even if I do finish the partial payment I have left which is less than 35$

After all, I have already paid these people an arm and leg for some mediocre pictures that I thought wasn’t such a bad idea in the first place. Portraits USA is a NON reputable business! I would not recommend them to ANYONE. They have horrible customer service, no tracking of billing info, never sent any kind of confirmation in the mail of a payment made, or how much is left to pay, never returns your phone calls. Worst of all, they scammed me into a bigger deal on these pictures because later I was informed of people that got a better deal on a smaller package than I did. 

I am disgusted with this bad experience, and horrible service. They were not willing to work with me or be truthful. This is a huge scam and with the nice faces they have trying to sell you the pictures, it’s still bad judgment to proceed with them. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone! After researching, I realize I am not the only one this company has done this to. Wasted plenty of money! Please don’t let it happen to you.