Don't quaff your sherry and down the canapes too eagerly, however. These people bear a remarkable similarity to cockroaches and do tend to keep on resurrecting themselves after you thought you'd shooed them off for good.
It was only last week that I got a phone call from them, my second free makeover in two years (are they trying to tell me something?). I wasn't nearly as brave as I'd hoped to be in telling them to piss off, but I did mention my blog. Maybe it was the blog wot dun it. Stranger things have happened.
But in the meantime, do get in touch if you've come across these scalliwags. Perhaps you know where they've gone next, these masters of makeover and disguise. If so, let me know.
FASCINATION STREET LIMITED @ 120 GREAT PORTLAND STREET LONDON, I believe this will be the new company (The Studio, Paparazzi & so on)that will be offering makeovers & photos. DO GO THERE!!!!
ReplyDeletesame old dodging bill tricks!?? Facinating it can be allowed to happen!!!
ReplyDeleteEveryone's comments regarding Paparazzi/Fascination Street are true. Craig Ward, the director of both paparazzi and fascination street, is behind it all. Previous to that Studio London and so on...
ReplyDeleteYou can complain about the conduct of a company and/or director at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency
Let's not let these scum get away with it, essentially stealing money (and details) from people!
I'm embarassed to say I was taken in by this scam, I discovered this blog after making an appointment and paying the deposit so thought I would make the best of it and go to London (make a weekend of it) and get the money back. Unfortunately I got caught between the company's transition between being 'Paparazzi' and 'Fascination Street'. I still clung to the hope I would get my money back by honouring the new appointment that 'fascination street' were "honouring". Well..THEY then cancelled on me for some long-winded reason and promised me a refund..yay!...BUT because I originally booked with 'Paparazzi' I'm not entitled because they are a different (yeah right) company, so I'm screwed unless someone can help with an argument to get my money back; which I only want back now because I can't stand the fact that they have it and have got away with scamming me. Annyone pleeeasse help!
ReplyDeleteI posted just a couple hours ago, I rang 'Fascination Street' with my refund issue, having had an original booking with 'Paparazzi'. I spoke to 'Brian' who told me to ring tomorrow 09/02/2012 as the "managing director Craig and his wife will be visiting"
ReplyDeleteI got a call today offering to buy my photos from a shoot I attended a year ago with "Paparazzi" for the discount price for £100 if I paid there and then over the phone. They reassured me my photos would be sent on CD within 10 days... scam?
ReplyDeletei got the same call.. offering me all my photos from a session a year ago. they wanted 150 pound.. which i said i couldnt afford.. they managed to bump it down to £50! so i gave my details and apparently supposed to recieve the pictures within 14days.. well i still havent recieved these!! just wondering if they previous post about the offer actually accepted it? and did u get your photos? I now cant find the number anywhere and would like to know where my pictures are!!
Deleteive also paid 50 pounds for photos not arrived yet - has any one else's photos arrived yet??
ReplyDeletei got a call as well saying the same thing and managed to get the cost down to 75 pounds and paid the money as the man was very convincing.. he said to allow 14 days for the cd of my photos from last year and its been 7 so far , just wondering if anyone else who got this call has the photos yet ?????
ReplyDeleteI received a call also from Brian about 2 weeks ago to buy all my pics for £100. I said I can only pay £50 so they promised to send it to me within 10 working days. TOday I received a CD from them with no pics on it! They kept their promise to send within 10 working days but why to send a blank CD??? Their phone number is 0207 099 1111. Pls text me if you had similar issues. Thanks
ReplyDeletere blank CD - I forgot to write my mobile number, which is 07879280490.
ReplyDeleteI have had an offer form this the same number 02070991111 offering all of the photos from the paparazzi studios shoot took place 6 months ago for 150 quid. Has anyone else actually received their photos? I will update as the situation progresses
ReplyDeleteI got a call from Davie Tyler in Jan, offering me all my photos from a shoot last year, for £150. When I said no, he bumped it down to £100, then to £50, and said he'd also include photos of the friend who came with me. I agreed. I waited and waited for a month, for the cd, and left loads of messages at that number, with no reply. Finally about 5 weeks later, I got a cd (thankfully it DID have all the images as promised). But the cd had been sent without postage -- so I had to pay the post office something like £1.50 to receive it!
ReplyDeleteI called and left a message about having to pay their postage. But by that time, the recording didnt say "Fascination St" anymore -- it had an American standard recording voice, saying the person at that extension was not in.
Here's another issue: Davie said that the charge would appear on my statement as "Fascination Street". But instead, around that time, a charge appeared for something called "Paladin" in Watford. I wanted to be sure it was them. So I tried to call again, and it wouldnt let me leave a message. I called my bank, and they said all the info they had was that Paladin was some sort of credit management company. So hopefully that was them.
So I'm glad I did get the images, but annoyed how long it took, that the charge was confusing, and that I had to pay postage.
That last post is interesting. Paladin are the financial company that Paparazzi used to chase up people after the photoshoot and after conning people to sign over hundreds if not thousands of pounds! Would confirm that Paparazzi and Fascination Street (and Paladin??)are one and the same!!!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe so many of you also fell for their manipulating scam. I felt so stupid after being talked into signing a contract with them! Paying off the rest of my bill in June and can't wait to be rid of them!
ReplyDeleteI also paid £50 to receive the rest of my photos! It's been about 2 weeks so far I called them and was told I should get them by Friday as there were 2 massive piles of photos to be delivered! Let's hope I recieve them!
I had received a call from Brian with regards to photos of my daughter, charged me £70 and was told 10 working days, that's about three weeks ago now. I have left numerous messages on the number he called me from. I have just today spoken to Brian. Again promised to call me back today and confirm that my cd has been sent in the post. Will keep you posted as to what happens. But must admit am worried now.
ReplyDeleteThis is ridiculous. I also recieved a call over two months ago now stating that all my photos are available for £50 from a photoshoot over 2 years ago. I stupidly gave my card details over the phone and have not heard from them since. It's hard to get through to an actual contact number for them. I rang Paladin and they gave me another number which doesn't actually belong to Fascination Street.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe there are such businesses thinking it's alright to scam others. Does anyone know how we can legally complain about the company or claim a refund?
Got the call yesterday from 02036279631(Simon?)offered all the photos for £80 and immediately said £50 if I was a student!!!
ReplyDeleteI had my photoshoot last year in july 2011. I bought all of my photos and it cost me 1160 quid. I have paid 756 pounds I'm still paying 58 pounds per month and still owe 404 pounds. If they offer pictures for 100 pounds why do i have to pay the huge amount. Does anyone know what can i do to get the refund of 756 pounds and to stop the further direct debit?
ReplyDeletePlease reply as soon as possible
Thanks
I have just discovered this after googling Fascination Street out of curiosity, to see how they were doing.
ReplyDeleteThey nearly hired me as a photographer for their recent studio - which is in Camden. After a lengthly trial process in which they wanted me to take around 30-40 photos within 15 minutes and retouch within 15 afterwards - I ended up being rejected along with 2 other photographers my own age, with no reason.
From what I gathered with first-hand experience, Craig seemed like a nice enough guy if a little ill informed when it came to prices and the branding of the studio. He seemed to want it to be both a recording studio as well as photography, he also wanted the pictures to be finished within half an hour of shooting and sent off to the customer the same day. Any photographer reading this will understand that good photographs take time and they wanted to produce (in Craigs words) "Iconic" photographs, not just your standard family style portrait photography.
Anyway anyway anyway, long story short we were eventually dismissed for asking too many questions, albeit reasonable ones such as "are we working for you" "when do we get paid" "what are our hours" and "how can we do this amount of photos within such a short amount of time". It was a pain in the arse and a waste of three days, not to mention they didn't pay for our travel or lunch - so we essentially worked for free for that time period (we were left to our own devices in the photography studio to get to grips with it, but ended up photographing people off the street because they couldn't find any clients).
One thing which pissed me off was Craig's wife, I forget her name. A horrible, bitter woman who kept patronising us and telling us that "I've been doing this for years so I am better than you" and "you'll learn this eventually, I'm a lot more experienced", that sort of thing. The woman was nothing special, a very basic photographer with no imagination. She clearly was jealous of our age and our ability to photograph and retouch at a higher level than she could, and slowly - as the days progressed - she became more and more rude and outright snappy and, quite frankly, disgusting to be around.
I can't believe, well I sort of can now, that they were runnning a scam agency before. I honestly thought they were a nice new company with a rock and roll edge, their studio in Camden is just opposite the stables and we were promised all sorts of perks for working there, such as a trip to Coachella next year and staff bonuses for getting customers in. The only problem is that there weren't any customers and we were still on our 'trial' after their opening date they'd marked on the calender.
I am bitterly disappointed that people like this can so easily deceive others - and I urge anyone with any sense to make some sort of complaint so that they can get some kind of punishment for their actions. By the looks of it they certainly had a lot of money to blow on the studio - kitting it out with fancy mirrors and leopardprint chairs and a brand new reception area kitted out with a Pacman machine, now I can see how they probably raised the funding for this.
Bunch of cunts.
Brood of vipers! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone! To publish someones' name is so unjust and unfair but you will all be judged as you have judged...sooner or later...a wrong for a wrong does not make a right. Where is your forgiveness? Have you forgotten that we are all human? If we revealed all of your mistakes and wrongs, I am sure you would realize that at some point you have all messed up too - have some compassion and intelligence. The guy is not evil, he may have made a few business mistakes but at least he tried his best. You know fine and well it is not a scam and are just annoyed that you've paid money that you yourself SIGNED for. You're not children but reveling in the gossip and scandal - no different from a witch hunt! One day someone may uncover your secrets and your mistakes publicly and you will know how it feels on top of the shame and hurt you already feel from having lost everything. Look to yourself and see where you have been untruthful, deceitful or who you need to say sorry to before judging others. If everyone did that, we would not have any of these problems. And if everyone reached out to those in trouble, maybe people would not feel the loss in some part of their life enough to scam in the first place...waken up and take responsibility for making a decision based on your own vanity and for signing a legal document in full sobriety...no crime has been committed but it has exposed your voice of accusation. Look to yourself and there you shall be recompensed.
ReplyDeleteI actually worked at Fascination street as a telesales exec. So I sadly had to be one of the people calling up to see if anyone wanted their old photos.
ReplyDeleteThe selling was legit, we genuinley had peoples photos and were selling them for what I thought was an opportunity to get these people to keep them. Turns out it was a massive scam to fund their new studio in camden.
There was only 5 of us in the office. Karin and Craig were barely around so we had to deal with angry people calling up looking for their photos. Eventually, they closed down the company without paying us as they hadnt paid their rent or bills at the office space. Im also convinced they had been taking money from our wages for 'tax', but never actually paying it. We never recieved a wage slip or confirmation.
It took them months to pay me what I was owed.
At first I thought they were nice and respectable people but I was very wrong.
And the quality of photos they take are terrible anyway.
i have a very different experience i confess, got the call offering all my photos on CD for about £75, paid the money and a week or so later got my photos in the mail on disc and was pleased with everyone of them... i must have been one of the lucky ones!!
ReplyDelete