Scene to Believe — Local services in Sydney

My Santa experience at plumpton marketplace was the worst I’ve ever experienced and I’ve been going to this company at plumpton since 2009 when my son was a baby so that’s 15 years I’ve been getting Santa photos at scene to believe plumpton and I’m very very upset and angry about this year My booking was at 4.52pm on Wednesday 4th December We arrived at 4.45 pm and there was a family still having photos We didn’t mind and just waited Then it was around 5.10 pm and the family was still doing there photos and we were still waiting Once again we were ok to wait as we understand having little children is very hard to get a good photo but Santa was very annoyed as he wanted to go home and we hadn’t even been seen yet. So the family finally left and we were seen around 5.15 pm or so. Santa came up to me and said it can’t take long because he has to go. I didn’t even know what to say to that so the lady taking the photos said Santa they have the upgraded package which is 7 different shots and Santa sighed and was annoyed. I understand Santa was tired and hot but I paid $60 and had a family of 6 to be seen and I had a booking. Santa wasn’t interested in our photos because he wanted to go and security came to get Santa but the lady said he wasn’t finished. So we did our shots but didn’t get to do all my 7 shots because Santa kept saying he had to go and by this time I’m extremely annoyed and upset now. The set as well is not big enough this year, it says you can have a maximum of 8 In the photo and our family of 6 just fit in and was squashed in, the set needs to be more wider like it used to be. So now our photos get printed and the lady said they didn’t all print so she had to do them again then when I finally got my photos I said to her why Is the photos chopped off on the bottom our feet were chopped off but there’s so much space of the centre roof in my photos, she said she couldn’t do anything about it. Then when looking through my photos she printed the wrong family shot as my main photo that I picked and once again she said she had to close she couldn’t fix it. I was extremely angry now and started to cry as my whole experience from when I arrived was horrible and seeing Santa is meant to be a happy moment and memorable for the family and it wasn’t this time after 15 years this visit was absolutely horrible and I ended up spending $102 cause I bought a frame that I’ve also collected every time I’ve had Santa photos. All my family and friends are also extremely disappointed this happened and ruined our Santa experience this year and I’m not happy AT ALL with...

Showed up to the Rouse Hill store 40 minutes early and I got to watch every 2nd customer berate the girl in the window over their photos. This made me quite nervous thinking they were going be awful and with baby #5s first christmas I wanted them all to be at the same place weve always gone. When it was our turn the staff were amazing with our family. The manager was running back and forth between the computer and my family adjusting bubs position and fixing dresses and dancing to make my little ones smile. They kept trying to get the kids to do different things like reindeer ears and reading a book which we didnt want and after talking to the manager after, they have to do this for everyone! We only wanted and paid for the one photo and by the end of the shoot I had 4 grizzly kids because they were made to sit there for so long after the main photo! While I understand its a way for the company to make money, forcing everyone who only want the one photo to get multiple taken is ridiculous. Now to the main complaint - I know why everyone was yelling at the girls in the window now and it was not due to the experience. THE PHOTOS ARE LANDSCAPE! I have all portrait photos of all my kids christmas and suddenly they decide to change it? The shop in the window (which to their credit they have tried to crop it out but then you have half a window that only shows the shop logo), the trees having barely any decoration on them which in previous years would be fine but this year they decided the whole trees would be in there. My fridge with all my santa photos on it now has a single landscape one and it looks awful! I spoke with the manager (she knew what I was about to complain about just by the look on my face they are dealing with it so often) about it and she explained they are not in charge of how its set up. If they try and get a nicer framing they get told no thats not how we do things! I have since spoken to friends, my mum group, and online and not a single person is happy with it. Everyone needs to stop yelling at the girls in the house about it and instead complain to the company who are telling them to ignore their PAYING customers and do it how they like it instead. Absolutely disgusting business practices. Girls, if you're reading this, you're doing an amazing job, especially Ebony who was the manager dealing with this all day WITH A SMILE ON HER FACE. I hope the company starts listening or I would be finding a new place to work because thats not fair on youse and you need to realise...

Today at the tweed city shopping centre my husband, toddler and I had the most horrific experience. We had a 4:24pm booking and joined the existing queue of 8-10 families at 4:20pm. A couple of minutes later an employee walked around to us and scanned our QR code. He came back a few minutes later and checked the people that had joined behind us. We overheard the people behind us saying that they had a booking for 4:09pm. The employee then came back to us and asked for our booking time, which was 4:24pm, the exact time that it now was. He asked us to move BACK in the queue (which had not moved since we joined) behind the lady that had arrived late.

I should have declined but in the moment agreed and moved back. (No one else was asked to move by the way). This on its own added an extra 20 minutes in the line. By this time, our toddler had started fussing and was not at all going to settle and wait in line for another 20-30 minutes. My husband had to leave the queue and entertain our toddler. Once we got to the front of the line it was 4:50pm and there was another couple behind us with an unsettled toddler who was crying, the same worker that made us move in the queue was seen and heard saying 'shut up' to the other worker about the crying toddler. He had zero compassion or understanding of what was going on.

By this point it was half an hour later than our booked time and our toddler was not happy to sit and take a photo, we had ONE photo that was average and he wasn’t crying. We tried to get him to smile but we were rushed off and made to feel like an inconvenience.

We then joined the next queue of people choosing their photos. 15 minutes later I get to the front and the worker doesn’t even acknowledge me as her personal phone is ringing, she answers it and says ‘hello, I’m at work what is it..’ or something along those lines and then chats for another 30 seconds or so. By this point I’m completely over this entire situation, I get my one average photo and leave.

I attempted to submit my issues on the chat on the website for it to be ‘read’ and then have the chat ended without a word being said.

Poor customer...