I'm wanting to get photo books to memorialize our various trips. A way to take the gazillion pictures I take and make them a quick, easy, viewable, life time memory. I found a service by the name of Picaboo that had a pretty easy to use tool and so I decided to turn our AK trip into a book.
I love my ideas, I love the way the layouts look - > the quality of the book is horrible. The pages are super thin, the colors on some of the pages are not solid (can see white shining through the background), and the binding is insanely crappy. These books wouldn't last 6 months much less a lifetime. Also, one of the covers came damaged. One book having issues, but both book having two distinctly different issues - that tells me something about the company.
So I sent them both an online inquiry last night about returning the books due to poor quality. When I didn't get a response acknowledging my inquiry I also sent an email. So today I get a response. I just love this response that I got from TWO PEOPLE one from the email and one from the online posting:
I'm terribly sorry that your photo book arrived in such poor condition. This is extremely uncommon, and I will report this to our production manager right away.
If possible, please take a few digital photographs of the quality issue to verify the nature of the defect, as well as help train our production team for quality assurance purposes.
When you have done this, please attach these images to your reply to this email. As soon as we receive your reply, we will provide you with further information regarding a reprint.
Again, we apologize for your books arriving in such poor quality. We want you to be happy with the products you receive from us and we take full responsibility for the poor quality of this order.
I await your reply containing these photos and sincerely appreciate your patience.
You did notice the "this is extremely uncommon" comment right - If it's so uncommon why do they have canned wording to respond to it. My response is below.
-The pictures are attached. As you can see on the one book there is a noticeable white line around the page that is completely unsatisfactory and the other book’s cover is obviously damaged. I’ve also noticed that on the book that has the cover damage that the glue holding it to the backing is already starting to give way in areas.
- I’m not in interested in a reprint. I want to send them both back to you and get a full refund. I am totally dissatisfied with the condition the books were received in, the quality of the paper they were printed on and the binding method used. These books wouldn’t last a year much less the lifetime I want them to last for my family.
Please let me know ASAP what I need to do to facilitate a refund.
Maybe I was too harsh but I don't think so given the price I paid and the quality of these books. Its nutz! Don't use Picaboo! I'm going to try Smilebooks next; have read some pretty good reviews and I like their tool. We shall see.
8 comments:
Creative Memories is far and away the best in scrapbooking! They are the only product I use. Yes, they are a little pricey, but they will last a lifetime!!! I do mine manually, but have done one digitally and they are beautiful... check them out. www.creativememories.com
Did you do yours in the black/white? Cause they really don't seem to offer anything else. I even paid the $60 for the 2.0 software and it still doesn't have any options. They have a few free page downloads but not many basic color choices? Any suggestions... I'm not really looking for a scrapbook as much as I am a basic color background and the ability to put my pictures and text on the page. And to have it printed where it is going to last a lifetime.
Hmmm, I used the free version and I used a layout made for little boys...it was lots of blue. If you go to Creative Memories.com, you can look in the "shop products" tab and click on "digital scrapbooking". Click on "Free downloadable themes". I just looked and there are tons of free themes :) They constantly add new things, they probably didn't have it back when you used it... They have Basic Blue, Gold, Red, Green and they added more themes...
Hi Mylerna,
I saw your review, and I wanted to suggest you try Mixbook.com for Photo Books. I'm a bit biased, as I am one of the founders. :) But our photo books are high quality, are software is free and 100% online (no download required), layouts are fully flexible (choose to use templates or make your own) and more! The prices are competitive too. Feel free to email us at support at mixbook dot com and we'd be glad to give you a discount on your first order (just mention this comment).
Andrew Laffoon
CEO and Co-Founder
Mixbook.com
I also had a very poor experience with Picaboo. I used Picaboo to create a number some photo calendars of my new born son for our family as XMas gifts. I created 5 different calendars with different pictures depending on who it was for.
MY BIGGEST ISSUE was discovered when checking out...you cannot combine multiple items into a single order. As a result, the five calendars I had created all had to be processed separately, and, worse, I had to pay shipping on all of them. I ended up paying an extra $80 in shipping charges alone ( I had invested too much time to walk away at that point).
This is not a company that is customer focused and I would recommend staying clear as a result. Had much better experience with our wedding photobooks at Blurb.
I had a very bad experience with Picaboo. Customer service was very bad, they were rude don't ever care about the customer satisfaction. I am a new customer to picaboo, I tried to use there promotion for free photobook. I intially like to try the quality of the photobook by using this promotion before ordering the expensive large photobook from them. I live with my roommates, the promotion says it is per new customers. But when I tried to order the book the coupon didn't go thru as one of my other roommate used it for him. I spent many hours to finish the photobook, it was extremely frustrating. When I spoke customer service person on live chat, he was so rude and told that It's to be expected that a new customer will also be a new household. How on earth that we will assume that new customer is a new household, which was not mentioned no where in the promotion details. It was really frustrating. I don't think they care about customer satisfaction.. They mislead the customers by wrong promotions which won't work for as they said. You will end up buying the product because you kept so much effort and time to it. It is kind of trap they use to get the customers. I don't think they really want to run a succesful business.
Thanks for this review. There is a half priced deal for Picasa photo books and I almost bought it. Your post have made me change my mind. Thanks for saving me the money, time and heartache!
Just got my photo book in. Cost around $160 with shipping. Pictures are very bad quality. My printer prints better pictures!
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