Argh. Sam's Club Photo.

Don't get me wrong. I have always loved Sam's Club 1 hour photo. I have used it since before Violet was born. I have had at least one roll developed there every week for the past 5 years. That's THOUSANDS of dollars on prints, reprints, enlargements, and film.

And they've always been great. I've had a couple of minor mishaps here and there, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.

Until now.

I am mad. And not just angry. But a little crazy, too.
(Don't worry, Tint. They didn't lose your negatives.)

I have been working on my sister's wedding album. I've already finished a smaller, 40 page, 9x9 album of photos from the wedding and reception, but I wanted to do a formal album for her, too. Like Mom has... with all the 8x10s of the best shots from the day. I picked out 26 great photos. I took the STACK of negatives, all clearly marked, to Sam's on Friday, and told them to give me 8x12s of all of them. (I do this cause I didn't want THEM deciding where I wanted my 8x10s cropped. It's just easier to get the 8x12 and crop it myself, and it's the same price) The manager wasn't there, just one of the worker ladies. But they all know me and they know what I expect of them. No problem, they'll be done by 6 p.m. YAY!

Valerie picked them up for me and paid for them. 55 bucks.

I saw Val on Saturday and she gave me my photos. I opened up the package. I notice a couple of dust specks on the first couple - great. I'll need to get those re-done. Then a photo of them was backward - like the lady put the negative in the machine wrong. I was starting to get annoyed. THEN I GOT PISSED. The photo of the two of them at the waterfall was COVERED in dust specks - like all across their faces!! Gimme a break! You would have failed photo 101 for that! And that was when I turned to the family photos at the bottom of the stack. ALL 6 OF THEM had a pair of huge scratch lines running the length of the negatives - across the people's faces and bodies. This was not a dust speck. This was total negligence on behalf of the lady who ran the negatives through the machine. She did NOT make sure it was clean and free of debris before she sent the negatives through and she damaged them.

(Melinda, don't panic. This *can* be fixed with a little help of a REAL photo finisher - whom we know - and some photoshop techniques. I promise!!)

So my plans of working on the album at Saturday's all day crop were thwarted.

I called Verna, the assistant manager, right away. She first apologized for not doing the negatives herself. Then she tried to tell me it wasn't the machine at all, that it might have been my negatives... I told her that it was most definitely the machine. We had the negatives processed by our PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER at Ritz Camera. They were fine till we had them run through the machines here.

So here's what I think happened. I know I used the negatives in question as my example to her for what I needed done. So they were likely on the top of the stack. She started ruining them through and printing the photos, probably getting through the first 6 before the prints started coming out. When she stopped to check on the prints, she noticed the scratches and realized her mistake. By now it was too late, but she cleaned the machine and tried to reprint them anyway - to no avail. Then she pulled out the next negative strip (the one with Melinda and Luke) and was so concerned about the cleaning of the machine that she didn't bother to blow off the negative which is why it ended up covered in dust specks. Finally, she started on the next roll and vowed to get it right... cleaning the machine, but in doing so likely got specks of crap on her gloves so when she handled the negatives, even though she cleaned them, they ended up with specks on different spots of the photo. As these photos came out, since the specks weren't obvious (on people's faces), she breathed a sigh of relief and kept on printing, thinking that what she was doing was fine, and hoping (for some odd reason) that I wouldn't notice what she did. She was trying to get these done quickly for me, and she got careless.

This is why I think this happened:

1. I know their policy of cleaning the machine, because I have dealt with scratched negatives in the past.
2. When I confronted her today, she was VERY defensive - overly defensive - saying it wasn't possible for the negatives to be scratched because she followed all the procedures.
3. When I showed her that it was clearly a problem with that roll and those specific strips, she had no clear answer for me.
4. Like I mentioned before - It is likely she got careless because I asked her to do them in 6 hours instead of overnight.
5. I didn't wait for the manager to just do it. I trusted this clerk, and she's not the brightest bulb in the bunch.

I returned the photos (all of them) and got my money back. I will be speaking to the photo manager and Sam's Club general manager on Wednesday (they are off until then), and I will be requesting that Sam's Club pay for the photo finishing fees it will take to restore the damaged negatives from this roll. I will also get the other photos printed at a photo finishing lab so that I know that they will be handled correctly, although I won't make Sam's pay for that (unless the specks were actually damage and not just dust particles). I don't want to get anyone fired, or anything like that. But I *do* want to be sure that they find out what is causing their machine to scratch negatives (which only happens when I ask them to reprint 8x12s). But I think I am totally justified in making Sam's Club pay to fix the ones that were ruined by their machine and their negligence.