Petty issue: Won a charity auction for photoshoot and photo credit. Turns out the photoshoot is just the session with no photos. Photo package starts at $400

My friend bid on a dog photoshoot package at a silent auction and won. She gifted me the package for Christmas. I communicated with the photographer back and forth throughout the year to schedule the photoshoot and make sure it wouldn’t cost extra to include me and my husband as well as our dogs, and she said it wouldn’t. On the day of, when she knew we were heading over to the park (after I had my hair, nails, makeup done, outfits picked out for me and my husband as well as our dogs), she told me that the photo package is just a sitting in the park for the photoshoot and a photo credit, but we will NOT get the photos digitally unless we spend a minimum of $400 on 5 prints or we can buy 1 single image at $150 a piece. The photo credit is $150 off the $400 package and $50 off the $150 single photo. I’m sure they would be nice pictures, but we cannot afford this.

I’m not sure why she’d donate a photography package (that my friend bid $(unknown amount) for) that was seemingly a ‘prize’ for the highest bidder at a charity fundraiser in a modest town if she expected the winner to pay hundreds of dollars more for the actual photos, or that given the circumstance, she wouldn’t make an exception since this is a donated service… It’s only a partial donation, and now we are getting the short end of the stick as the high bidder. My friend probably saw bidding on this item as an opportunity to be able to afford something nice while supporting our local community, and like I said, I just feel completely taken advantage of. And if we had done the photoshoot, our photos would have been held hostage, and the emotional feelings we have for our pets would have been used as leverage for getting us to pay for an extremely expensive photo package. It just seems like a bait and switch to not mention the cost of the actual photos until we were on our way there. I’m so sad and cried about this the whole way to the photoshoot and couldn’t stop crying to get out of the car and take any photos. This seemed like a creative investment that was supposed to help us and our community. Everyone would have safely assumed a photography package included at least a photo or a digital copy of a photo. And yes, it’s wrong to throw in just the sitting. It’s like winning the uncorking fee, but no wine. I mean, why do that for a charity? If you really wanted to give to a charity, then give it and don’t make it seem like what it’s not. OR spell it out, and she didn’t. A woman like this should NEVER donate to charity unless she’s willing to come off her high horse for a moment and GIVE a little, the purpose of the charity. Nothing was spelled out, but as a consumer who is clueless as to photographer terms, as most consumers would be because we were all chattering at the auction about how awesome it would be for dog photos… It seemed as though it was a package deal (photoshoot plus photos).

I see this as her way of advertising to make bigger sales and could have probably cared less about the charity and more about getting business out of it unethically. Not to say photographers wouldn’t donate to charity for business or advertising, but do it right. I would have referred her and used her as a paying customer year after year and spread the word. I definitely feel scammed and won’t be using her services. I don’t want to ask the charity for money back, so I guess I’ll just chalk this up to a lesson learned about deceptive photography marketing. Is there any way I can get the person who donated her photography services to the auction to compensate my friend or me if I decide not to pay that ridiculous amount of money for photos?

I agree that a donated item for a charity should not require an additional charge that a regular person would reasonably assume to be included.

While there may be nothing you, the OP, can do about it, I’d alert the charity so in the future it’s either clear to potential bidders (if it wasn’t), or they reject the donation.

@Bevin
Yeah, this pops up so often. These bait-and-switch photographers give everyone in the industry a bad name with their charity scams. Even when they don’t do the charity grift, they’re acting like their time is incredibly valuable. It CAN be, but nobody’s gonna want to pay you for your time to take photos they don’t get. They’re buying photos, not your ‘time’. That’s like paying a chef to cook for you but you don’t get the food. Definitely tell the charity they’re grifters trying to pull a fast one.

@Cameron
Not defending the photographer, but if you’re going to have a chef cook for you, you’re paying them for their time to cook as well as paying for the food that gets cooked—you don’t get the food for free.

But I agree; the photos should have been rolled into the cost of the session bid upon, or spelled out very clearly that photos weren’t included. I’m sure the winning bid was higher than the standard sitting fee charged by the photographer.

@Leith
That’s exactly the point though. If someone donated one personal chef meal and the chef said they would make whatever recipe for you but you still had to pay to eat the food, that’s pretty much what happened here. Like yeah, it’s expected that in the price of the photoshoot, some sort of photos are included. No one pays for a photoshoot and 0 photos. That would be modeling, in which case the photographer should be paying you.

Not a photographer, but someone who coordinates a major fundraising auction. Reach out to the charity and ask for a copy of the catalogue. They should have included all the information in that. The one thing I have learned is that when something is donated, you want to know exactly what is being donated so this situation does not happen. If the wording in the catalogue did not clarify that it was only for a photoshoot, as the host, I would pay for the photos to keep up good relations with the donor and the winning bidder. I would also make sure that my catalogue was crystal clear the following year. If it was clear in the catalogue description, I would take your loss and know that your friend supported a good organization.

This has become a common technique among upstart photographers thanks to ‘influencer’ photographers on YouTube and TikTok promoting it as a genius way to get clients in the door. It’s incredibly sleazy, but if they just market it as a photoshoot and say nothing of final deliverables, it is probably not illegal.

Not legal advice, but I have been to plenty of these auctions and charity events. She needs to get in touch with the event organizers and clarify what was in the bid description. The organizers may have not really known and need to make sure they don’t let this person ‘donate’ again.

What location did this happen in?

Was this information actually available during the bidding or when the package was received? There’s a lot of ‘It seemed’ and ‘we assumed’ in your post, but whether or not there’s a legal issue here will involve how the package was presented in its documentation.

@Ronald
State of Illinois. I wasn’t at the auction and now I don’t know how to get copies of what was advertised. I can ask the individual if they have a copy of it.

Case said:
@Ronald
State of Illinois. I wasn’t at the auction and now I don’t know how to get copies of what was advertised. I can ask the individual if they have a copy of it.

You will definitely need that. If it’s clearly spelled out in the paperwork, then you probably wouldn’t have much of a legal case. If it’s not, that’s a different issue, but it’s also tricky who would stand to recover any money or what other actions could be taken, if any.

Case said:
@Ronald
State of Illinois. I wasn’t at the auction and now I don’t know how to get copies of what was advertised. I can ask the individual if they have a copy of it.

Find out the name of the charity and check out their website.

Info like this is usually posted for several months after the event and should be easy to find. If not, you can still get the name of the event organizer that could help you.