Blueberry Beignet

The worst service ever. They also charged to my credit card $ 379.75 without my authorization.
My wife, grandparents, my son, and I came to Blueberry Beignet for my son 7-​month photos. The appointment was 9AM, they called in last minutes: «we are currently busy, can you reschedule to 11AM?» I said ok and we arrived 11AM. No one is in the desk. The lady yelled out «wait for us few minutes». I heard noises in the back so I thought they were taking photos for other babies. The lady showed up at 11.20AM and it turned out they were taking photos for their pets (the two dogs), there were no other customers around. Then we brought our little boy in to take pictures and the whole experience was terrible. When one of the two ladies held up my boy to let him sit up to take picture, she was talking to the other lady and didn’t pay attention so my boy felt off from the chair to ground. The boy cried. They didn’t even say sorry. We asked if mom can breast feed him few minutes to calm him down. They said ok and we brought the boy away for about five minutes. During that time, they brought back their two dogs and started taking pictures for them. When my boy was done breast feeding, grandma told them «we are ready». They were still taking pictures for the dogs for about 10 more minutes, we five people just wait there (and we paid them $ 150 section fee for only about an hour). They were very bossy in general. They required us to stand on the side in certain places when the boy was taken pictures, and we cannot take pictures from the side. Fine, it’s their service, their rule. Then they just brought the phone very close to my son’s eyes (only about 1 inch away) in order to take his attention and let him look at the camera. We usually tried to not let my son look at phones, since we believed it’s bad for his eyes. And they just did whatever they want to my son without asking for permission. I felt like we came to a job interview, had to go under «their rules», not as their customers. The section was quite short, only 4 scenes, lasting less than an hour (counting the 15 minutes they took pictures for their dogs in the middle).
They said we need to order pictures for at least $ 500 after the section fee, and they already set up the date for us to come to check and order the pictures. My family and I were very disappointed about the service and we don’t want to take the pictures anymore since the boy didn’t even smile at all during the session (and my son smiled a lot at home, we had plenty of his smiling pictures, which were much better than what they took). We just left. I didn’t get back to them, didn’t show up again for the ordering appointment and just let it go as a bad experience. BUT NOW THEY DID THEIR WORST MOVE: THEY CHARGED $ 397.75 TO MY CREDIT CARD WITHOUT MY AUTHORIZATION AND DIDN’T EVEN INFORM ME (THEY HAD MY CREDIT CARD INFO WHEN I PAID THE SECTION FEE). It is clearly illegal. I had enough. I called my bank to take back the money and block them from charging my card. I had to let people know about this terrible service. And be careful; don’t let them have your credit card number.

Two years ago I gave my son and daughter in law a gift of a photography sitting with Blueberry Beignet. Their daughter was born with a medical problem that kept them from using the gift for a while. But yes, two years later they are just now were getting around to using the gift. Neither I nor they got a gift card in the mail from Blueberry Beignet – and I didn’t know to watch for it. I had/​have the email exchanges with the owner Tillotson and my credit card records to prove I purchased the gift. I have a receipt sent to me from Tillotson’s email recording the charge to me on her books. AND-​she never told me this gift would expire. I was dealing with local small business so it never dawned on me to be worried whether I would have enough documentation of having paid for the sitting gift. Now she says the money is hers – without any services to be provided because: 1) we waited too long to use it and 2) she has to have the physical gift card. There is nothing on her website about gift certificate expiration dates. And while she says she keeps a record of selling gift «certificates,» she doesn’t record them when they are redeemed. So someone could have gotten our gift card and used it already. She compared this situation to a Dillard’s gift card – if you lose it too bad for you! That is very clever of her and it came out so easily that I believe it has happened before. And just like Dillards with lost and unused cards, she pockets the money! Yes, clever that she does not keep a record of when cards are redeemed. I guess this is a nameless, person-​less business like Dillards is. But in this situation, she had us coming and going – no card and we also took too long! Either way we paid her and received no services and somehow it is our fault. Hard to imagine that a small business person where word of mouth business is important that she could be so extremely customer unfriendly. We are just too dumb for her. Buyer beware when dealing with this business. The owner will clearly screw you out of money if she gets a chance to be clever with you!