Natalie G.
So unprofessional.. I spoke to the owner of Instabooth Photobooth (Gonzalo) back in April 1st, & told him what I was looking for & the theme of my sisters party. He told me he was available for the 29th of June & was excited to attend the party because his birthday was that same weekend which I should of saw that as a red flag, but I liked the pricing & what the package deal came with so I booked ! That same day I left a $50 deposit to make sure we were on for the 29th but he also told me that I would have to pay full price 2 weeks prior to the party which I thought was a bit scary only cuz I normally you would pay any service being done the day of the party just in case they didn’t show up or some emergency happens but still went on with booking him. Since my sisters birthday was a sweet sixteen black/white Masquerade themed, I wanted to make sure the photo strips were going to match the theme, he told me he was going to send me an example through via email to see if I liked it or not so he can make changes, which I liked.
May 12th comes by & i still haven’t heard from Gonzalo with the sample of the photo strips so I decided to text him & send him a picture of the invitation so he can go based off that. But he did not respond.
I decided to call him May 16th, & he answered. I apologized to him for texting him constantly about the strips but I was just starting to get worried since he wasn’t sending me samples but he apologized for that & told me he was just really busy with his full time job since the Photobooth is a side job, which I was being understanding. During the phone call he told me to text him my email address so that he can send me the samples.
May 18th comes along, & still no sample from him. I checked my email, junk mail too & still nothing. So I decided to text him my email address again since I thought maybe he typed it wrong or something since he said he was going to sent it right away after the first time I gave him my email.
By this time I was already seeing that it was so hard to get in contact with him so I wanted to message him through Thumbtack but before I did I texted him again on May 22nd telling him that I feel like it’s hard to get in contact with him, I just simply want a sample of the photo strips so I can see whether I want him to make changes to them or not. Later on that day he finally texts back & sends me a sample of the strip, I liked it but I just asked him if he can change the color & the style of the strip since I wanted the original strips that are vertical & he sent me a strip that goes horizontally. He then said he was going to make the changes right away so he can send it to show me.
Finally June 6th comes along, still no response from Gonzalo & it’s 3 weeks before the party. I messaged him asking to see the final results & so like that I can send him the rest of the money before the party arrives.
Today is June 27th, TWO days before the party & still NO response from Gonzalo, luckily I booked another Photobooth for my sisters birthday but I am really upset at the fact that I couldn’t get ahold of him, he was inconsistent, & rude at the fact that I couldn’t get a response letting me know he was not going to make it to the party to let me know. I lost $50 I can’t get back, not even half of it. But hey, we live & we learn. I don’t recommend Instaphoto booth only because of their lack of communication.
UPDATE:
Gonzalo finally contacted me the day of the party, he sent me a pic of how the strips were going to look so he was asking for any last minute changes to the strips but unfortunately I told him that I already had found another photobooth last minute because of the lack of communication, so I was not going to continue working with him for the party. He was very understanding and apologized for the lack of communication so he offered to give me back my full deposit. This time he was really quick and attentive so I appreciate him for that.
