Bad experience with Ofoto - A Kodak Company

[Dave E.]

Not sure where to put this, but I wanted to get the word out. When I get bad service, I like to let the group here know.

I had received periodic emails from Ofoto.com, A Kodak Company on printing digital images. So I decided to send some images to see what they could do. Here is the chronology.

2/21/04 I uploaded images to Ofoto and received a acknowledgement for the order.

2/23/04 I received an Ofoto email advising me that the order was cancelled due to copyright protection issues. The email advise me to request a Consent Form Request.

On the same day I did as advised and also informed Ofoto that I owned the images and was surprised by the response since I never saw anything in their "fine print" about consent forms.

2/25/04 I email Ofoto again and indicated I was still waiting for a reply. I sent this to two departments within Ofoto.

A few days later I forwarded my emails to Kodak.com.

To date, I have still not received a response from Ofoto or Kodak. I have found a new vender for my digital imaging needs.

Kind of a lengthy post for me, but just wanted to advise the "post-heads" (is that a word?) here about my wonder experience with Ofoto .

-Dave-

[stew]

Dave,

Sorry to hear about your bad experience! I have personally never used Ofoto. I used Snapfish so far and they've been pretty good - fast turnaround after placing the order, and i have been satisfied with the prints.

I am curious, which other vendors have you tried? I wouldn't mind trying others to see price vs. quality...

Thanks! -Stew

[another view]

Take it as a compliment I guess - the pictures must be very good for them to think that you're trying to steal someone else's professional shots! I read about a similar situation maybe a year or so ago at Wal-Mart (not sure what city) where someone did some portraits and tried to have them printed on their Fuji Frontier. They wanted to see the original image on the C/F card (like it couldn't be copied back onto a card!). He was thrilled that someone thought they were professional shots because they were one of his first experiences at portraits.

Although I did use Adorama's online printing service once, I've been going to a grocery store locally that has a Frontier. I've been very happy with the 4x6's at $.18 and the 8x10's at $1.89, no shipping and next-day pickup. I prepare the digital file and all they do is print it. As long as they maintain their machine (which I've had no problems with), the results are great. Adorama did a nice job too, but it took about 2-1/2 weeks from upload to delivery.

[Dave E.]

I have also used Adorama and have had very good luck with them. I will continue using them off and on. I think their prints are very good. I am currently attempting to reach the next level in terms of image quality. I have used Apollo Imaging out of Milwaukee, mostly for film processing and enlargements from negatives. They have excellent products, but customer service was not as good as I expect it to be.

I am currently working with Pechman Imaging. I am just getting set up with them. So far customer service has been excellent, no superior. This is in spite of me contacting the same people in the past and then never following up with them!!!! Stay tuned.

-Dave-

[racingpinarello]

While not being able to get your prints printed on a timely basis does lead to a bad taste, they are helping photographers keep their images from being copied. I have used them repeately over the past two years and have been throughly pleased with their service.

They asked me a couple of times for the consent form since I failed to take off the copyright from the digital file. Within a day they got my release and sent the picture. I get my images, from upload to mailbox in less than 4 days.

I would call the customer service phone number and give them the order # to verify the status. A bad experience is a bad experience, but overall I think that Ofoto does a good job.
Loren