First Nightmare Client.....

So I shot a 2 hour birthday party for someone who was going to be in town only for a bout a week. Since they claimed they were leaving 2 days after the party they asked if I could burn their images to a disc and mail it to their brothers house. I agreed to do it, I pushed for me uploading their shots to my website but they claimed they weren't too great with computers. 2 days go by and they call me claiming that they were staying for a few days longer and if they can pick it up from me. When I told them where I was located they were like thats too far can you meet closer, I was pretty upset at that point and told her that I would just mail it like originally stated in the contract. She started complaining about not being able to get her photos now that she had the chance, I gave in and agreed to meet up with her closer to her location since I was going to be in the area anyways.

A little while later I get a text thanking me for the great photos they absolutely loved. The next day I get a request asking me to mail a CD to their parents house, I said it would cost them $150 to mail another CD to their parents, she started complaining asking why I couldn't just make another copy, I did not budge and would not send it for free. Yesterday I get a text telling me that they keep trying to look at the images on their MAC at home at that it keeps spitting the disc out. At this point i'm pretty upset since I was able to view the images on my macbook just fine. Now she wants me to upload the images to Shutterfly.... At this point i'm pretty fed up with this client and just dont want to deal with her anymore....

I need to avoid shoot and burns from now on....... just venting......

You've been paid, she got her disc. End of story She doesn't pay extra, no disc for her parents. Haha. If she really wanted to, she can just copy the disc and send it to her parents.

Well I wouldn't call that a nightmare. If she's the worst client you work with this year, consider yourself blessed.

It's a challenge dealing with people who a) don't understand the costs of producing good images, and b) lack the technical skills to accept product in electronic format. It's part of doing business. Get used to it.

I'm just wondering why you didn't/don't upload them to a site such as flickr or photobucket, password protect the folder you upload them to and then send them a link to the file (and the password).

Seems like you would have saved yourself a ton of problems. I pay $24 a year to photobucket, can make unlimited folders, something crazy like 500gb of storage and it doesn't resize the pictures (the free version limits the size of the images).

Ask her to mail the defective disc back, and you can send a replacement.

Curtis N wrote in post #15519360
Well I wouldn't call that a nightmare. If she's the worst client you work with this year, consider yourself blessed.

It's a challenge dealing with people who a) don't understand the costs of producing good images, and b) lack the technical skills to accept product in electronic format. It's part of doing business. Get used to it.

I agree. This isn't bad at all. Annoying yes, but at least there's not a huge sum of money on the line as well as a reputation to be destroyed.

I dislike physical media though. I simply avoid burning photos to a disc. If I sell the digital files, the transfer happens online. All CDs do is slow the process way down. And perhaps that's a good thing, as it keeps them from making duplicates easily.

Curtis N wrote in post #15519360
Well I wouldn't call that a nightmare. If she's the worst client you work with this year, consider yourself blessed.

It's a challenge dealing with people who a) don't understand the costs of producing good images, and b) lack the technical skills to accept product in electronic format. It's part of doing business. Get used to it.

This ^

Get an account on Box.com or the like (if you don't already have one) - upload the pics, drink a beer, send the link. Make photos, not war... haha! It should be pretty easy to keep this positive, none of what you described is that far outside the norm as Curtis mentioned. Tell her you're not sure about the disc since it works on your Mac and was no doubt burned by a Mac - to avoid the same issue here is the link, that can be shared with the family (avoid mailing another disc with the same possible issue) and happy birthday, and thanks for the future referrals!

something like that

If this is your version of a "nightmare" you are going to be in trouble when you get a difficult client.

Lol I jumped the gun when calling it a nightmare... I would say annoying is a good word... I uploaded the images to my site... Seems like she is cool with that...