PhotoBin

My video to DVD conversions did not arrive until two months after they were ordered last year at around this time.
It took SO MUCH EFFORT to sort out the conflicting prices and other erroneous information, that when I FINALLY received my DVDs I put them aside with the idea of checking them later.
Later came today. I have checked 4 of the 12 DVDS so far. Two were fine. The third one a wrong recording altogether and the fourth one was only TEN minutes of a 1 hour video!
I still have EIGHT more DVDS to check.
It is late and I need to get some sleep so I will finish my check tomorrow.
Meanwhile when I tried to call the company, I find out it is closed. So, I guess I am screwed.

Oh, poor poor Photobin. You have such nice customer care people that I am sure have to deal with your company’s poor quality complaints day in and day out :(
Background: Purchased a voucher for picture scanning. Upgraded everything — the WORKS!
Sent photos in: 15 week later (yes, 15 weeks — that is almost 4 months!!), received my photos super dark. Called their Customer care — resent in the photos post giving them an example of one I scanned at home and taking a picture of the picture, along with their digital. OBVIOUS differences.
Get back a msg from PhotoBinstating: we have attempted to rescan and no change in quality.
REALLY? My $ 44 home printer scans better than you???
Anywho, enter their customer care who refunded me my upgrades (not the voucher). At least I got a bit of my money back. What a waste.

I would NOT recommend using photobin. My family had scanned all of our mothers photos using photobin and we were originally told that we would be able to view them online which we were for some time. They have now canceled that feature and deleted our photos from their system so we can no longer view them at all.

They don’t even deserve one star, I would give them a ZERO STAR RATING if I could! They are a typical SCAM, selling you a ‘deal’ and then tricking you into unnecessary upgrades! Gold disc lasts 100 years, huh? Doesn’t scratch? Will you be around in 5 years photobin? HOPE NOT! (And please Elizabeth, no customer relations BS! I’m sure you’re busy enough with all the truthful 1 star reviews!)
Steer clear consumers!!!

They suddenly stopped producing photobooks and deleted all their customer’s saved projects. I had just purchased my photobook in november– I was happy with their editing software, communication w customer service, their production, and ship time. I was about to reorder the same book today– and found out that they suddenly (the words of their customer service) decided to change their focus to just scanning photos. There was no notification anywhere on the website prior to this change, and they didn’t bother emailing their customers of this big change and the loss of all the saved projects (but they had emailed that free trials were over, so it was possible for them to email all their members prior to making such a huge change). I am really really unhappy. The website claims that the owner recognizes how important memories are– well then, dear sir, please have the courtesy to let your members know when you are going to delete all our saved projects, and give your members the opportunity to make a last minute purchase before it’s all gone.

Avoid these people at all costs! The are masters at the old «bait and switch» SCAM! They sold me a package deal with the promise of doing a job — I bought if from a smooth talking salesperson who sounded very sincere and friendly. Once they got my tapes the bill jumped from approx $ 232.00 to $ 420.50! Of course it was «my misunderstanding» and nothing they did. Now they have returned my tapes without any notice of what they are going to do about the $ 75.99 they owe me. Stay away from them they do not care about you, your tapes or the finished product. Hope they are put out of business soon. Check out ALL the reviews before you pay them ANYTHING or trust them with your film. Their «customer service» is totally non-​existent. Liars and thieves — find someplace local to have your film taken care of — at least you can look them in the eye if they lie to you.

I had all my family 8 mm videos re-​done here. They send out young recruits that you know to convince you to save your memories. I had previously done this at Costco but had hoped that the quality may have been better at photo bin.
I was very disappointed. They said it would take two weeks but it was done the next day. Clearly a rush job. They only captured about half of the film. The disks do not play well in my computer all fuzzy. They sent back two tapes claiming they were blank. I put them in my own camera and they played beautifully. spent over $ 500.00. Costco did a much better job at less than half the price.

I purchased an Amazon Local Deal to scan my photos to disc. I have the ability to do this on my own, but I do not have 4 – 5 hours to take on such a project. So at the great price of $ 39, it was worth it to pay someone else. However, I was severely mistaken. When you go online to use your voucher, they first tell you that you have to pay an additional tax. Not part of what I bargained for, but at approximately $ 3, I was not going to fight it. So, I gave Photobin my credit card number to pay the tax. This was mistake # 2.
Sometime around when I received my originals, Photobin charged my credit card once again for another $ 50. This was supposed to be because a small percentage of the photos I sent «did not match their specifications» and they had to charge me an additional fee. Be careful using this company because you will be charged more than you bargain for and receive just an average quality product.

YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!
After working 6 months on a family cookbook of my mom’s recipes for my family, everything is gone without notice. This is the reply I got from them when I asked where my project went.
«Thank you for contacting PhotoBin! I am very sorry, but our printed products have been discontinued. The photo book portion of the website was removed. Unfortunately we will not be able to print your book, nor will we able to retrieve your saved project. I sincerely apologize for the disappointment and frustration this will cause you
Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or concerns.»
I know I’m not the only one. I’m hiring an attorney.

Very expensive to convert 8 mm tape. They charged me $ 0.29/foot on supposedly 1,600 feet on eight (8) reels. These were given to me on one DVD disk, with eight titles, the eighth one being blank.
I believed they told me they would only charge for video, yet they charged for the entire reel. There were smaller reels and n the «box» that ended up labeled and probably counted. I feel like they used me to pay for new equipment to process 8 mm reel films. Going to put results on YouTube for family and let them know I what I was suckered into.

Worst company for transfer of slides to DVD. I bought a Amazon deal to transfer 300 slides to a DVD and I received the worst customer service: extremely long time to process the order (it’s been 7 weeks and I still do not know when they will send my DVD), unable to call them back because the guy who left my a voice message gave me a fax number!!! The choice they give you to get your slides back is expensive (they do not want you to use the post office but rather FedEx only, which is bullshit!
Bottom line, I will never use them again and discourage anyone to use their service.

I too used an Amazon voucher like many other reviewers. I received multiple phone calls when I placed my order to upsell me. I’m in my 11^th week and the phone calls are starting again — likely to upsell again. I’m wondering if they’re holding my order hostage unless I spend more money?
I’ll be patient for a while, but that will eventually run out.
Never again will I use this company.

This is mainly a shout out to Brooke, in customer service. I had initially emailed PhotoBin asking if they could please change the return address on my shipment, and knowing it takes 5 – 7 days (with buying the priority shipping for an additional $ 20) I assumed my package was still there.
The first lady I talked to, Larissa, told me that it was too late to change my address because the package already shipped. HOWEVER, the second person to answer my email told me that she was able to contact UPS and have them reroute my package to my dad’s house in time for Father’s day.
So thank you again Brooke for going above and beyond and for being super awesome in taking that extra step to track my package. I know a lot of people complain about added charges after purchasing their Groupon, but I still saved a butt load more by going through Photobin than with any other company.

This is one of the very worst internet companies I have ever dealt with. And this from a guy who does 70% of all shopping online (141 orders from Amazon in the last 6 months).
First, and most important, you should know that their normal turnaround time is 5 – 6 WEEKS. No, not when they’re busy. All the time. ALL… THE… TIME!
There is one thing they excel at; they are the kings of the up-​sell. On their website. By phone a few hours after placing your order. When your order is about a week away from processing. And yes, one of their up-​sells (not inexpensive) is to speed up your order processing. Tigers!
In a world of automated email acknowledgements, these guys don’t bother to let you know they received your order. No updates on order status. No notification when your order is being shipped back. Email them for an update and you’ll get a standard response reminding you that processing time is 5 – 6 weeks. Polite as heck, I admit, but still just a flat out stall.
Now these are huge problems by themselves, but add in the factor that they are holding on to irreplaceable photos and the stress becomes significantly elevated. I’m not even that sentimental, but I was squirming from the uncertainty of ever seeing my pics again.
Finally, to cap it all off, when I finally received my pics and dvd back 9−½ weeks (yes, NOT a typo — 9−½ weeks!) the vast majority of my scans are very seriously over-​exposed! Dark, dark, dark… some beyond recognition.
I dealt with this company only because of an Amazon. local coupon. On my complaint, they refunded my money, and I’m STILL pissed. And I’m usually a pretty calm and relaxed guy. THAT’s how much I don’t like this company.

If I could give 0 stars, I would have.
I purchased the voucher through amazon for 6 videos to be converted for $ 39 (I ended up spending about $ 70 total with the additional shipping charges) which I was very excited about as a Christmas gift for my mother. Their website said 5 – 6 weeks for the current processing time, so I sent my videos in October 12^th, thinking I would have them by the beginning of December.
Boy, was I wrong. When I still had not received the videos by the second week of december, and the status on the website was still PROCESSING, I sent them an email to inquire about my order. Several days (I think 4 or 5 but I can’t remember the exact turnaround time) later I got an email back saying the status of the order was processing and they have a 6 – 7 week turnaround time. They also said they didn’t «check in» my package until 10/​31, so that was the official start of that 6 – 7 weeks.
I wrote back saying that they need to make customers aware of that, as they had clearly received my package much earlier than that. I also asked why they didn’t update the current processing time on their website. The response I got back a few days later did not answer any of my questions and was basically just a canned response saying they were sorry for the inconvenience.
I decided to give them t he benefit of the doubt and hope for the best.
When the order still hadn’t arrived a week and a half before Cristmas, I decided to givfe them a call. They told me that my order was still processing and it was now at least 8 weeks processing time. I was very upset and asked to speak with a supervisor, who told me there was nothing they could do without me paying a $ 50 expedited fee, and even then they would not guarantee that I wold receive the order before Christmas, because they had a lot of other people who were paying to expedite as well. I did not choose to expedite my order. I went back and forth with the woman for awhile, mentioning that the information on their website is false, and she was not apologetic at all, and borerline rude.
needless to say, I did not receive my videos until the 2^nd week of January, a full 12+ weeks after I sent them in.
Now, I would be able to deal with this if the quality was at least good. but it is not. The vieos have a very displeasing menu screen, long blue screen pauses between scenes that do not exist on the original videos, and they did nothing at all to enhance the quality of the vidoes; in fact, I think they are worse on the DVDs.
I am VERY disapointed with every aspect of Photobin, and will never order anything from them again.
On a sidenote, I had 2 other videos I wanted converted to DVD… I got them done at Costco. They were on sale for $ 12.99 a DVD from $ 17.99, They allowed me to choose a menu them that went along with the theme of the home movies (i.e. one was of a few childhood Christmases, so the menu theme was Christmas related), the video quality was greatly enhanced, and the videos were sent out, converted, and returned to my Costco location within 2 weeks. Fantastic service, it was night and day compared to Photobin!

If you are building a photobook, please use another vendor. I purchased an Amazon Local coupon for 50 pages for a 8.5″ x 11″ book for $ 19. This was a great deal, however, it was too good to be true because the photobook software was terrible.
Here are my gripes:
— You cannot move one of the pages because the left and right side of the pages are connected.
— You cannot delete one of the pages because the back of the page will also get deleted. Therefore, you will need to redo pages.
— I never figured out how to do the spine text.
— The portal was really small. You had to scroll at the bottom of the screen to insert the picture that you wanted for your book.
— Printing was not the best. On the cover of my book, the printing of the title was off.
One of the better aspect of this company was that Customer Service responded back to my email on a question that I had. I did like how the book had a blank front and back cover page.

I’ve used just about every photobook service out there and this one is A-​OK.
The editing software has some pros. You can spin, rotate, resize the images and alter the page layouts more easily than with some other websites. You can add photos from any of your galleries without uploading them to a specific album — thus less limiting/​restrictive than other websites.
It also has some cons. For the life of me I could not figure out how to make the spine text box vertical (instead of horizontal). I made five books and each time I had to email the customer service staff to help me out. Customer service staff does not work on weekends — so check your voucher expiration date and start a few days ahead of time.
The size of the photos and the book pages on my screen was smaller than with other sites, so sometimes hard to see, but I did like the mouseover feature to preview images from the gallery — it saved a lot of time. A clip/​paste board for editing was also useful (can set aside a few photos to choose from and then decide which ones you want for the page).
The way the bindings were glued seems less secure than with other services I have used, but other than that, the finished books look great.

Purchased a Crowd Cut deal for a photo book for Grandparents day. While the book did not arrive in time for us to give on that day, it arrived to two very appreciative and one very emotional «Nana» who absolutely loved the book to pieces…
Their program is easy to use. Photos are easy to upload and the templates and designs are easy. The only problem I had was the text. That function was a little touchy and didn’t always work the best. Most likely user error.
The book arrived within the time frame quoted.
For the price and the reaction I would definitely use Photo Bin again.
I already have another family member interested in purchasing one since seeing my parents book and the quality of it.

HORRIBLE.
We used AmazonLocal voucher to get the 6 videos to DVD for $ 39. There are additional charges so when all was said and done, we paid $ 60 for this service.
When we finally got our DVDs about 3 weeks later (there is no way to track the status of your order on their site other than «PROCESSING») the video quality was horrible.
Additionally, turns out that one of our video tapes literally broke. They returned all the tapes us, including the broken one in a plastic bag with a note that it broke. There’s no way for me to blame them for that as it might have been broken when I mailed bit, but there was no compensation for that in terms of the 1 video that was not converted. They got paid to convert 6, only converted 5 and there is no compensation? At the very least they should include a voucher or refund for the 1.
But, even if they did, I would not use it. The quality of the conversions were absolutely horrible.

A groupon or daily save coupon or some other random coupon led me to this place.
It wasn’t worth the discount.
A photobook was terribly difficult to put together here. They didn’t have very many layouts for pages to choose from and by that, I mean they had 3 layouts for pages with 2 photos and a total of 20 layouts total. If you’ve been to other photobook sites as much as I have, you know that that is a paltry selection. The photo download process took forever, and editing was next to impossible. Ok, pretty much impossible. I gave up and ordered it as is.
I received a confirmation email that my book was in process, and had it shipped 2 day since the price was about the same. It’s a San Diego based company that’s located off Mira Mesa Blvd. It’s less than 10 miles away. After 2 weeks of nothing, I emailed the company. Nothing. The next day I sent another email. Nothing. After 3 weeks of waiting, I get the book in the mail. Strangely enough, I get an email confirming the book was sent after I received the book. Terrible customer service.
With all the other options out there, all cheaper, better quality, and a much easier website, I don’t see coming back to Photobin. It’s a shame because it’s a local business. Get it together Photobin.