• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Picsolve Photo Rip Off

Have you ever had the digital photo added without your consent?

  • Yes, I was charged £8.40 with MAP discount

    Votes: 2 10.0%
  • Yes, I was charged £10 as a non MAP holder

    Votes: 8 40.0%
  • I got the Buy one get one half price, without digital photo added

    Votes: 1 5.0%
  • No, I paid normal price of £8

    Votes: 4 20.0%
  • No, I used my MAP and paid £6.40

    Votes: 5 25.0%

  • Total voters
    20

TheMan

TS Member
Favourite Ride
NemiLerVion
OK, I am still annoyed by this:

(I wont print the receipt for now, but have it still, here is the mock up)

Items Sold: 3

ATOB AP Picture 6.40
ATOB AP Magnet 6.40
ATOB Digi Photo 2.00

Total: 14.80

Now. I cannot remember how much the little fridge magnets are, but let me assume they are 8 quid also. They had a buy 1 get 1 half price offer on, I asked if I could use my AP AS WELL, (as they keep changing everything), they said YES.

What they meant was, YES, you can pay MORE by waving your AP at me!!

8 + 4 (half price) = 12. NO annual pass.
£6.40 + £6.40 - 12.80 PLUS £2 digital photo NON-OPTIONAL* 14.80!!!

*They also told me, because I used my annual pass, I HAD to have the digital photo added on, and that even though it shows separately it is INCLUDED in the price of the photo! They told me it was FREE and then CHARGED me for it!

Just what they hell do they think they are playing at?

This is just wrong and I am going to get in touch and tear some new ones over this because I was lied to, overcharged, and made to buy something I did not want and even queried because I didn't want it and told I HAD to have it, because it was "included" when you used your ANNUAL PASS!

I actually tried to get this removed and they refused.

Anyone else?
 
Picsolve have massively increased multi purchase prices this year.

2012: 5 photos £20
2013: 4 photos £20

I've stopped buying them.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
 
Is it still 2 for £10? I thought that was a pretty fair deal... If not then it's awful by the company to raise their prices by so much! Maybe a £1 or £2 increase but not that much!
 
AstroDan said:
2 for 12 now?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

That was my point mate, with their offer it would be, but they decided to let me use my AP and add on a digital photo I told them I didn't want, was told I wasn't allowed to not have it, so I got charged £14.80, as a MAP holder!!

The only reason I didn't really push the issue was they were not backing down, and the day itself was more important as I already took enough time farting around with them.

They got this past me, and I knew this wasn't right, imagine how many times they've been doing that?
 
Cant say Ive bought an ORP for a long time, the quality of most of them is shocking. Never mind the poor value for money.
 
I don't think MAP discount has existed for Picsolve for... At least 5 years ago...

Being forced to pay for something extra is out of it though...
 
There's no way I'd have paid that, in fact I strongly doubt I'd even be willing to pay £12 if I'd been told I could get it for less.
 
Benzin said:
I don't think MAP discount has existed for Picsolve for... At least 5 years ago...

Being forced to pay for something extra is out of it though...

They do, you just can't use it together with their "offers" hence the AP code, it actually makes it more expensive, plus of course, you have to have the digital photo if you have a MAP...

John said:
There's no way I'd have paid that, in fact I strongly doubt I'd even be willing to pay £12 if I'd been told I could get it for less.

I don't buy them often, but daughter was going on the rides for the first time, so I have had a run on them lol! They are nice to keep, even though the quality is frankly crap as Ben says, I still enjoy looking back over mine.

It is the issue of being overcharged, and the refusal to remove something I did not ask to buy that I find to be crossing what I view to be a serious line. Best part of 3 quid because they first off, lied about being able to use the MAP with their offer, and then lied again about the digital photo being "included" but charged for separately (basically saying, it should have been 10 quid).

That is bad practice, I want to find out if anyone else had this happen. I seem to recall someone mentioned it, and thank goodness they did because it was having that in my mind that lead me to check the receipt in the first place.
 
As far as I'm aware the digital photo is 100% optional. Although Picsolve staff at Towers are not asking guests if they want it and are adding it on as a standard. Or by the looks of it in your case they could be lying. I'd love Watchdog to get their hands on this!

Unless anything has changed recently there's no way of earth you MUST have the digital photo. I would write a formal complaint to them about that. Daylight robbery!
 
Ben said:
Cant say Ive bought an ORP for a long time, the quality of most of them is shocking. Never mind the poor value for money.

Picsolves photo quality is very good actually, you should see some of the shoddy photos you get at foreign parks.... EP's are dire.

Despite that they are INCREDIBLY over priced, and dirty sales like that don't help. I would have refused to pay, got the photo number and made a complaint.
 
James said:
Unless anything has changed recently there's no way of earth you MUST have the digital photo. I would write a formal complaint to them about that. Daylight robbery!

Yeah they definitely bare face lied to me telling me at first it was "free". I want to get a handle on how widespread this is now.

How does their relationship work with Towers? The thing is, I am an "enthusiast" and I don't fully understand their partnership, and certainly didn't realise any difference until I started using the forums. To the GP, they are Alton Towers, the staff wear the uniforms and for all intent and purpose, they represent the resort.

I don't want to drop AT in the brown, for nefarious practices of Picsolve, but this is bad, and I would imagine, illegal.

Dave said:
Despite that they are INCREDIBLY over priced, and dirty sales like that don't help. I would have refused to pay, got the photo number and made a complaint.

I have the receipt as I had already paid, it was on there that I noticed, I asked them about a refund on it and they REFUSED.

This was Friday, so not much to do before tomorrow really, I thought I'd find out how many others had had this happen, but that's a bit daft I guess as none of you miserable skin flints will buy them anymore ;D

Ha-ha!

Refusing me a refund on it, if I wasn't so stupidly over run by enthusiast pride at my daughter conquering a BIG ride (I will leave it there) and not wanting to do further battle over it, I'd have made a fuss there and then.

I left a certain arcade mightily angry though.
 
Picsolve is a separate company, I believe they set prices and policy but if the park disagrees with something it's usually changed.
 
TheMan said:
Benzin said:
I don't think MAP discount has existed for Picsolve for... At least 5 years ago...

Being forced to pay for something extra is out of it though...

They do, you just can't use it together with their "offers" hence the AP code, it actually makes it more expensive, plus of course, you have to have the digital photo if you have a MAP...

Since when? Granted I haven't paid for a single photo in a while (Photopasses whenever I know I'm getting them because good value when it's for the whole year)...
 
Cue related Picsolve rant...

The Picsolve system has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. The price is one issue, I do think that more money can be made with cheaper products that result in more sales. This biggest issue for me however, as has been mentioned, is the dire quality of the images. Some are good, Oblivion seems to be fairly consistent, but others such as Spinball, Thirteen and Rita are far too hit and miss. As a photographer it pains me to see how bad it can be. The issues could be abolished with some often simple solutions and I find it incredible that a company such as picsolve, who pride themselves on their image quality (lord knows why), makes so many errors.

An out of focus photo of a subject that is in the same position every time, from a camera that doesn't move, is inexcusable. It's a setting which, once set, should not change so it seems to me that whoever sets these cameras up is doing a lazy job.

Another issue is exposure. In some lighting conditions the photos are underexposed and look muddy as a result. Now, I accept that the cameras use a very specific array of settings to achieve the high rate of photos taken when a train passes. This limits their ability to adjust exposure as ambient light conditions change throughout a day. However in this day and age, correct image exposure no longer makes or breaks a photo and modern image processing software is very good at rectifying such an issue. There should be an automatic system that checks the histogram of a photo that comes in, compares it to the histogram of a correctly exposed image, then increases/decreases exposure to compensate. With it being an automatic system it wouldn't be perfect - a human decision would be far more accurate - but it would be fit for purpose and would improve their current results.

The next issue on the list... White Balance! While a lot of guests may not know what this is, it makes a drastic difference to the look of a photo. The cameras can't adjust their WB settings for the same reasons they can't for exposure. Again, my solution is post-processing. They could add a grey card to the trains which software could check and adjust the WB accordingly. Now I think about it, this could also be a solution for exposure.

My final pet peeve is the resolution of the images. It's low. I don't know if this is the quality of camera or not, but the product a customer receives is low-res. It's especially noticeable if you get a digital copy. On the Picsolve website, they boast 10 megapixels but that's not what I have recieved.

It could well be that I am over reacting and that I am nit-picking, but I am a great believer in the effect these small issues have on the subconscious interpretation of a photograph. If all these were corrected I think that more guests would appreciate and make purchases as a result.

Back to price related discussion, I also think that if they insist on charging these extortionate prices then the photo quality should be reflected in them. There is no way I would part with that much cash for such shoddy work. I wanted a Smiler picture but the white balance was so blue that I didn't bother. I think I would pay (at a push!) for a sharp, correctly exposed, correctly coloured, high-resolution photograph of my friends and I scared poo-less on Rita and not feel tooooooo ripped off. (Maybe)

On a side note, I don't claim to know for certain how Picsolve cameras/systems work, I'm making assumptions based on the images I have seen and my experience during my photography degree. It may well be that Picsolve have procedures in place to correct the issues described above, but if that's the case they don't work very well so there must be something else.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Benzin said:
Since when? Granted I haven't paid for a single photo in a while (Photopasses whenever I know I'm getting them because good value when it's for the whole year)...

I don't know, they said they weren't even sure. Then said they could. And it shows up as AP photo £6.40

Given the other nonsense I was fed, makes me wonder whether they let me use it because it worked out more expensive against the offer.

I would not normally think that way, but I can only judge on the way they treated the rest of the purchase and the fact they had to actively charge me for something extra they then lied about and refused to refund.

PICSOLVE, you win the NASA award....

NASA_zps5c11f052.jpg
 
We bought a set of four so that we could have one each from our ride on The Smiler. The price was astronomical but what annoys me most is that on the third row, inside seat, everything is so dark and poorly printed you can't even bloody see me anyway.
 
Picsolve don't spend any money on their older photo systems as they themselves believe they're leaving the park soon, so won't invest.

As for digital photo - it's 100% optional. They have been using this tactic of saying the price is more expensive with a "free" digital add-on to boost these sales figures. For some reason it's unofficial Picsolve policy at towers to upsell like this, presumably by their management. But it's illegal, and the more people who complain the better.

So yeah, complain.
 
I went to Towers a couple of weeks ago with a couple of friends who had never been before. They went to buy a photo of themselves on Nemesis and were quoted £10 for a single photo. They chose not to buy it and were unaware until I told them (having read it on here and bought a photo myself for £8) that the staff were adding the digital photo on without asking them. Non-enthusiasts wouldn't have a clue that they were being given a digital photo that they haven't asked for, for an extra £2 that they don't necessarily want to pay!

It seems staff on some rides are doing this and staff on other rides aren't! When I got my The Smiler one I was given the option :)
 
Digital photo is a free service at a lot of parks these days...

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
 
Top