I Want My $400 Back!!!!!

So, SUPPOSEDLY, I have $400 coming back to me. But it's taken almost 2 months for me to get it back. The refund check was to be written on July 3rd. So if I don't see it in the mail by Wednesday, I'm going to raise hell!

Obviously, there's a story behind this. Quite a stressful one, at least in my opinion! My ten-year high school reunion was in May. $400 is what we paid for the DJ. I left my camera on the DJs table. Granted, that was all my drunk ass' doing, however, she took my camera at the end of the night ("for safe keeping"). I was pretty sure I knew where I had left it, so when I returned to the country club to clean the next morning, I went straight to the two tables closest to the dance floor. My camera was on neither. So for the next hour or so, I searched for that damn camera: on the picnic tables outside, in every golf cart in the shed, in the freezer, in the grill. I ALMOST went through the trash. I was so upset about losing my camera. I text messaged all of my friends who I had been with the night before, hoping someone had it. But no luck. It was hard for me to come to terms with losing my camera. It had over 800 pictures on it....everything from the past 3 years or so. Granted, no baby pictures or wedding pictures or anything, but things that were still very important to me. I had one last hope, I decided that on Monday I would call the DJ company.

Monday came, and I did call. The owner wasn't aware of any cameras being found, but he let me talk to the actual DJ of our event. She said she did pick up a camera on the table and since she couldn't find anyone to leave it with at the country club, she took it and was planning on calling the club that day to see if anyone was looking for it. She asked me what kind of camera I had, and I honestly wasn't sure so I asked her to turn it on and see what the last picture on there was (even though I had no clue what was the last picture I had taken). She turned it on, then told me it looked like there were no pictures on it. I knew this couldn't be right! But she said, "the screen says, "pictures taken: 0, pictures remaining: 1380." I knew that didn't sound good. I told her I would make the 45-minute drive to their office and pick up my camera, I didn't want to wait until they came back in town. She then proceeded to tell me that she, "just wanted me to know that that had been the first time she had turned on my camera." I believed her of course, and didn't think anything of the comment. I wouldn't want anyone to think I had been using their camera and ended up deleting the pictures.

The whole way up there I was trying to piece together the night of the reunion - for the second time. The first time was when I was trying to locate my camera, this time was trying to remember if I had tried to delete any pictures. It's very easy to delete the whole memory card. That being said, however, I had never done so. So I was surprised, no matter how drunk I may have been, that I would have erased my memory card. Several different people had used my camera that night, so I thought maybe one of them had accidentally pushed a wrong button, etc. Then I got worried, would someone I went to high school with dislike me so much that they would delete my pictures on purpose? Because that would be one of the meanest things anyone could do to me!

I got my camera - the owner and the DJ neither were at the office when I got there. No biggie though. Sure enough, no pics on the camera. When I returned to work, I researched photo recovery programs on the Internet. I downloaded several, but had no luck. I ended up going to Staples to buy a card reader, hoping it would make my camera cooperate better. While there, I spoke with the manager about photo recovery. She told me that Staples Easy Tech offers such. I got the info on it, basically it would cost me $400 to recover the memory card. But they had a money back guarantee. After having no luck with the card reader or any of the recovery programs, I decided to go with Staples.

Who knew you could recover deleted photos?! Kinda scary if you think about it!

I was able to stomach spending the $400 to recover the photos. I had been reimbursed for the expenses of the reunion, so I had that much money to shell out on something like this. I was also able to stomach it because I thought it was my fault. It took a few days, then I received a disc of my recovered photos. Well........only about 60% of them had been recovered. I was extremely bummed about this. I was missing about 20 pictures from the reunion. Apparently the money-back guarantee didn't mean you were guaranteed to get ALL your photos recovered. Glad the manager explained that to me! But that's a whole other story.....

What tore me up most was that the last 5 photos recovered from my camera were of the DJ! In her home! Not at the country club, or anywhere I recognized! Therefore, she had taken my camera and used it! Maybe she did take it with the intentions of finding the owner, but that gave her no right to use it! I WAS FURIOUS!!! I mean, yeah, it was my bad for leaving it on the table, but as I said, that in no way gave her the okay to take pictures with my camera. So apparently, while trying to delete the photos she took, she either purposefully erased the whole memory card, or it was done on accident. Either way, I blamed her. And in all honesty, had those photos all been recovered, I probably wouldn't have done anything besides maybe call the owner and make him aware of the situation.

I did do that. Just wanted to let him know the situation. But then it irritated me that all I got was an apology and a "I'll talk to her." Even after I told him that it cost me $400 to get those photos recovered. I ended up discussing the situation with a few "legal" friends, trying to find out what my options were. I found out that the DJ company is responsible for its employees and their actions. It was recommended that I send a letter to the company threatening legal action. I did just that. I asked for a refund of the $400 that we paid for the DJ. I also enclosed the photos of the DJ as proof. I also threatened a complaint to the Better Business Bureau and a Letter to the Editor. I gave an approximate two-week deadline.

It was deadline day and I didn't hear anything from the owner, so I submitted a complaint to the BBB. I emailed a copy of the complaint to the owner. He emailed me back immediately, upset with me, as he had a death in his family and hoped I would understand. All he had to do was call me and tell me this and I would have given him more time. But he made no effort to contact me with that info. I left the complaint filed with the BBB, but held off on the Letter to the Editor or any further legal action.

After a few more emails back and forth, he told me he would give me a refund, as well as a formal apology. Well, the accountant was to cut the check this past Friday. I've yet to receive a "formal" apology - whatever the hell that is?! Not sure if it was supposed to be coming from him or the DJ. He did talk to her, and apparently she lied to him, said that there were no pictures on the camera. Not exactly sure what she meant by that, if she admitted to using it, saying there were no photos on there at the time. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Like I said, I've never mistakenly deleted my memory card - and that camera has been with me on many drunken nights - wedding receptions, tailgates, bachelorette parties, etc. I honestly don't think I accidentally deleted them. And even though I want that money back, and plan to apply it to my credit card, no amount of money can get those pictures back that I lost.

But now I wait.....and hope I see that money this week!