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[pct-l] Seattle FilmWorks

For those few who might be interested, the following is the body of a
letter which I sent to the president of Seattle FilmWorks today.  This 
isn't a complaint - Seattle FilmWorks got that - this is a 
"consumer alert" for those who value the pictures that we pay for in 
time, energy, money and sweat. Yeah, they irritated me. Worse, they 
upset Ginny - and that's not to be tolerated.    

Walk softly,
Jim Owen

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Gary Christophersen, President
Seattle FilmWorks
1260 16th Avenue West
Seattle, WA 98119

Dear Sir:

On August 5th, I mailed 4 rolls of film from Lake City, CO.  to  be
processed by Seattle FilmWorks.  On August 12th, I mailed 5 more rolls
of film from Durango, CO.  Upon our return home, we eagerly awaited our
photos and slides.  When we finally got the products, the photographic
quality was excellent.  But it took 22 days to get back the products
from three of the original four rolls of film.  It took 27 days to get
back the products for the other 5 rolls of film.  This is hardly
consistent with your claim for fast customer service.  The products for
the fourth roll of film have yet to be delivered to us.  The evidence
indicates are that they were lost in your processing facility, even
though your Customer Service people insist that they were mailed on
August 29th.  

In addition, every set of products which we have received has had the
last negative cropped so as to render it useless.  I could understand
your not printing the 25th or 37th picture on a roll, but to
deliberately crop the negative to make it useless is senseless,
destructive and infuriating.  In 40 years I have never had any
processing facility do that before, and I want it to be VERY clear that
I really don't appreciate it.  If this is your company policy, then it's
counterproductive because this alone would guarantee that I'd take my
film processing business elsewhere.  If it's an operational practice on
the part of your employees, then it's either ignorance or incompetence. 
In either case, you need to correct the problem.  To compound the
irritation, at least 4 pictures were cut from one roll .  And it's
obvious that at least one of those pictures was recoverable because we
got half of the negative.  

The final problem is that we placed a number of telephone calls to
determine the status of our film.  At no point in this process were we
satisfied with the performance of your Customer Service
representatives.  They exhibited a level of ignorance that eventually
led us to believe that they were either totally incompetent, totally
ignorant or simply lying to us.  After my wife placed three calls just
to locate a supervisor, she was told that the fourth roll of film had
been processed and mailed the previous day.  We still do not have the
products from that film - and 10 days later, your own on-line status
program still indicates that they have not been mailed.  They are still
listed as having been "processed" but not "packaged".  

Frankly, this has been the single most frustrating and upsetting 
transaction  that I've had with any organization since the Internal
Revenue Service made a mistake in entering my 1987 income tax return.  I
think you can safely assume that our business relationship has
terminated and that I will not recommend your service to my friends,
relatives, neighbors and business associates.  

Sincerely,
Jim Owen


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