Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/15/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I don’t know who to go to, numerous people say you all. I signed a contract to shoot weddings for Tolman Media-Boston in July 2022. From the very beginning, the area manager, Mark W*****, was not a pleasant person. The contract states we will be paid over Venmo within 30 days. I shot a wedding October 9, 2022 and still have not been paid. The area manager says the company is in the process of being acquired, by Timeless Photo-Video I believe, and thanks us for our patience as the lawyers work tirelessly. I reached out to 70+ team members, and just about every one else has not received payment since October, the other replies were from people who have stopped working for TMB due to Mark. Some of the others informed me they have been blocked from sending emails to Tolman Media asking for explanations as to what is going on and where their payments are. Additionally, we are still being asked to apply and work weddings for them despite the vast majority of us not being paid in 5+ months. I sent an email asking for a copy of my contract, since it was one of those online ones and now unavailable to view, and Tolman Media-Boston has not responded to me.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/14/2023

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My wife and I hired Tolman Media group (Tolman Media Wisconsin and Chicago IL) for our wedding October 1, 2022. We have yet to receive our wedding photos as the contractor for Tolman Group (Jessica H*****) has not paid the photographer. We have attempted to reach out to Tolman Group and they are not obligated to do anything as it was a contractor using their business' platform. We have also reached out to the photographer directly to see if we can purchase the photos from her, but she is worried that it would be a breach of her contractor. We have sent emails to Jessica H***** and have not received a response and her phone is no longer in service. Our goal here is to have our $1,475.00 payment fully refunded as the services agreed upon were not met (no photos have been received. Also, we would like the photographer to be released from her previous contract with Tolman Media Wisconsin and Chicago IL / Jessica H***** so that we can work directly with her to receive the photos of our wedding day. See attached for the contract and please let me know if any additional information would be helpful.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/16/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Hired Tolman Media (was TMEast Coast) now seeing possibly being called Black Sand Events over a year ago for my wedding Sept 11, 2022. Have yet to receive my wedding photos and video. Emails have been rejected, phone #s not in service. Reached a girl that is no longer with the company, she gave me a different # to try. Left voicemails on any # I can find online (seems like all personal voice mails) no response. Only left with frustration and tears and out a few thousand dollars with no images from our special day.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/11/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  see attached letter and documents I have been trying to contact Tolman Media for weeks now in regards to getting my money back from a down payment. They have not even tried to connect with me and I cannot seem to get ahold of anyone to assist with this. I have been dealing with the "NY Branch" of this company but it seems that this is the main headquarters. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for your help.

  Business Response

  Date: 10/25/2022

  Hello ********, 

  Thank you for making us aware of the situation.  New York is a licensee of Tolman Media, so I am not able to access their clientele. 

  However, we will be working with ****** to make sure you are contacted shortly and all concerns are resolved in a timely manner. I can't speak to all of the items in your letter at this time, but we will be reviewing them all once we make sure you are taken care of in the for the immediate future. If you have further concerns, please feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. 

   

  Thank you, 

   

  Melissa S*******

  Tolman Media Customer Service Manager

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/22/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have been trying to get in contact with the Tolman team for weeks and I have had no luck. I have reached out to several different individuals at the company (including higher-ups) and also tried to contact the team via social media. My email tracking shows that everyone is opening the emails, yet not responding. My message to the Facebook page was also read and not responded to. I do not expect immediate replies from a business, I understand people are busy. However, to be constantly and clearly ignored by multiple people on multiple platforms without receiving even a small courtesy message to say "your message was received and someone will get back to you" has made this extremely disappointing and as a client, it is beyond disrespectful. I originally wanted to find a solution with the Tolman team so we could still work together but after this disrespectful treatment, I just want to cancel my contract - however, they haven't even responded to my request to cancel either. My fiance and I are totally stressed out that we have now lost $1400 and have to pay more for a new photo/video team but at this point it's worth it if it means I work with an ethical business that is client focused.

  Business Response

  Date: 10/17/2022

  We do apologize for the delay in responding to your complaint ******.  There have been many changes in management with Tolman Media and sadly your communications were lost in the midst of that.  We feel terrible you felt disrespected and neglected.  That would never be our intention.  
  I have reviewed your contract and see it was officially cancelled Sept 26th and you were issued a full refund via Venmo for speed of refund.  We wish you the best and hope you have a great photography team to work with on your special day!  

  
  

  Thank you, 

  
  

  Tolman Media

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/31/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My wedding was 6/25/2022. I hired Tolman Media for photographer and videographer. I paid extra to get the voiceover and drone footage for the video. The voiceover I specifically wanted for the video was a letter reading between me and my husband. The first video did not have this as the voiceover. The first video also had 90 seconds of him getting ready and 20 of me. We also wanted more boat footagespecifically the footage out videographer showed us at the reception. The second video we received had the audio we wanted in addition to the audio we did not want. I let it slide because I wasnt clear on wanting only the letter reading. However, the video footage was exactly the same. Nothing else has been edited. I requested those edits take place as I did not like my video and those are the original edits we wanted. The company replied back with a $30 charge for a re-edit. I explained these edits were requested from the beginning and that they never took place. The response was the video editors use a lot of time to comb through footage and need compensated. Understandable, but these are original edits that was asked from the beginning. The original product was not what we wanted. I am requesting a refund for the video itself or a redo of the video to our specifications. We paid $2600 total for photos and video reimbursement for the video portion is all Im requesting if the replacement is not feasible. It has been frustrating to email back and forth asking for these edits and then being asked to pay even more money (again, these are edits we asked for from the beginning).

  Business Response

  Date: 09/12/2022

  The following explanation is from the Tolman Media Licensed owner that worked with ******** on a resolution:

  "  Here is a breakdown of events.
  
  Our contract asks that change requests be sent to our email in a timely manner, she did do this.  However our contract also says re-edits may be subject to fees. She is aware of this.
  
  After the wedding we sent an email to ******** asking if anything stood out to them that they would like us to focus on. ******** responded with 
     " I think all the group photos and couple photos are important. And the ones with the ******* sign behind us and us clinking our glasses together. money small request if at all possible, when **** and I read a letter to each other, I said like I once so nearly did. When I was talking about choosing wrong. I didnt mean to read that part. If there is anyway to edit that out, I would be so appreciative! "
  HQ editor ****** took this as, don't use this audio portion. And used other audio instead. She paid extra for voiceover, and we did add voiceover on the original edit.
  
  After delivery she informed us that she would like the card reading audio in the video, "Hello thanks for the videos we paid extra for our letter reading to be a narration over the video, and there is no sound of us reading our letters. Is this flexible? Also **** wanted more footage of us on the boat."
  We asked the editor about this, and HQ Editor ****** responded saying there was no more footage of the boat that could be used, but the audio request of the card reading was added at no cost. Since her response post wedding was a misunderstanding.
  
  Before we could respond to her letting her know there wasn't more boat footage, the same day she sent another email (responding to us saying we will send the video back to the editor) saying "Thank you I really appreciate it, if they want to take some time off the beginning of **** getting ready in order to make up for more boat shots that would be ok, it seems like there is a lot of him getting ready and like 30 seconds of just me".
  
  We sent the re-edit to her with the card reading and she responded with. " Hi I like the voiceovers. However, they did not change the editing of the video as I requested. There is still 90 seconds of **** getting ready and hardly any boat footage. I would like the amount of time getting ready to be even and **** would like more footage of the boat. If there is only 30 second of footage of me getting ready the video should only display 30 seconds of **** getting ready. Sorry to be a pain, but we do want our video to be perfect."
  
  This is when we told her that she would need to pay a small re-editing fee of $30.00 to cover the re-edit of the getting ready portion and that we don't have more footage of the boat.
  
  She then notified us that she reported us to the BBB. I feel like this is an abuse of power, the BBB should be for serious issues. Before she signed with our team she was notified that there may be re-edit fees in the contract. So she signed with us knowing this. But when that fee was brought up she goes straight to a reporting to the BBB? I am super confused by this action. And I definitely do not feel it was warranted at all. Nor do I feel that she is due a refund. She contracted with us to capture photo and video (we did this), and the deliverables we were contracted to deliver were ******* edited photos (we delivered 522 edited photos) and a 6-8 minute highlight video. Both edited versions of the videos were **** she also paid to have drone and voiceover. Both of those things were on both edits of her videos (although because of the misunderstanding of what particular audio she wanted we did make that initial edit to try and get the video the way she wanted it to be). Because we didn't have extra boat footage and her email was a suggestion not a request, we didn't feel the need to make changes to the clips. (by the way, we have reached out to the videographer to see if he does have this particular boat clip that she wants, it was not in the original upload, but we do want her to be happy so we have tried to do what we can and if we do find that clip we will put it in for her, which would be part of the $30 re-edit fee we told her about)."

  Customer Answer

  Date: 09/13/2022

   
  Complaint: 17804137
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  To the point of contacting BBB directly after being advised of the $30 charge, this is false. I emailed directly with the company advising I did not think this was fair as I had requested these changes when I asked the audio be changed. To that point, I read their explanation as to how the misunderstanding occurred and I do not see how asking them to cut a line from a letter reading meant cutting the entire letter reading? But that is beside the point. The $30 charge was not brought up when I asked for the letter reading to be in the video. Before that edit was even made, I asked for more boat footage (which I know exists because I saw it at the reception) and for the first part of the video to be cut. They read that as a suggestion--I come from the viewpoint of why would I bring it up if I did not want it to happen? 

  Furthermore, I advised (after the $30 fee was brought up and prior to my filing the complaint) that I am not happy with my video and that I have not shared it on any social media platform because I do not like watching it. The response was that the video is a reflection of the company's work and that basically it didn't matter if I (the bride) didn't like it, but that the company thought this was their best work. 

  I am rejecting their statement because the timeline they provided shows I asked for these things prior to the first edit when the $30 charge was not mentioned. If I had accepted the reedit of the video and then later asked to add something, I could understand the reedit fee. As it is, I asked for these things prior to the initial reedit. From my point of view, I paid for a service that I am not satisfied with and was being asked to pay more money. My reporting to the BBB is not a gross misuse of power as I did try to explain myself via email after the fee was mentioned. As a consumer, I think it is only fair to love the product you paid for. In this case, the pictures are fine but I paid for a video that I cannot watch. 

   

  Sincerely,
  
  *****************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/22/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have been attempting to work with Tolman Media for photos for my wedding. They have been very difficult to communicate with. I first reached to them via their their website. I told them all of the details about my wedding. They sent me email about their packages and were very communicative while I was setting up a contract with them. On 7/11 I asked if it would be possible to set up a phone call to finalize setting up their services, this was set up via text for 7/12 @ 1:00pm. 7/12 at 1:00pm I did not receive a call from Tolman Media so I called them. My call was answered by *****, she did not have any knowledge of my previous conversation or of the call that was set up. I gave her all of the information about my wedding date and of the services I was looking for. *** passed my information on to **** so she could get us set up with the payment. When **** reached out she did not have any of the wedding information that I had given to Tolman Media about my wedding TWICE. I gave **** the information again and set up a phone call with her. I was frustrated with the lack of communication and expressed that to ********* *** offered to do a free extra session for the confusion. The extra session for 8/22. Our Photographer ****** called us on 7/22 and she set up our extra session photos to be on 8/20 at 6:30 at the ******************* I followed up with ****** on 8/18 to confirm we were all set for 8/20, she confirmed. ****** also sent a message confirming on the morning of 8/20. 8/20 I arrived at the Capital at 5:45pm to scope out place for photo. At this point I was informed by a State Trooper that the building was closing. My fianc reached out to our ******* *** was kind and accepted full responsibility for not checking the venue ahead of time. We received a phone call from *****, her manager, later that evening where her only concern was to get us to accept blame for what happened. WE have been trying to reach Corporate Offices for 72 hours with no response.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/12/2022

  Refund was issued and the contract was cancelled for the wedding.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 09/13/2022

   
  Complaint: 17754122
  
  I am rejecting this response because: Yes the money was returned and the contract canceled. Tolman Media never took accountability for their errors. The money was refunded due to the fact that they no longer felt we were a good fit for their company. This was after two days of attempting to reach The Corporate on a phone number they gave us. After the second day of trying to get ahold of them we called over and over for two hours before someone to finally answer only to be told we needed to email someone else to even start getting out issue looked at. There is no communication within this company. They do not value their customers, we were given incorrect information that took us hours to sort though before we were A. Able to reach the correct person to assist with our issue and B. Reach someone that would actually listen to our concerns. Although I am grateful that our money was returned this company has a long way to go on communication and respecting their customers.
  
  The reason we reached out the BBB is because we didnt feel like Tolman Media took our concerns seriously. We felt we needed to bring in a greater authority since their companions communication is greatly miss-managed. I 100% feel that our concerns would have been ignored if we had not reached out companies with greater authority. 
  
  Sincerely, 
  
  ***********************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/30/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I paid a down payment for $585.75 on June 9th for this wedding videography service and discovered they were a fraud before my second payment of $585.75 was due on July 30th. I froze my card and am in the process of getting my money back on my card. They look so legit online with lots of wedding videos, making you believe that they are a reputable company.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/24/2022

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  It's hard to make a rating as our videographer and 1st photographer were amazing; however, the 2nd photographer, editing, and Tolman Media as a company have been less than great. We hired a second photographer who showed up "sick" and barely got any photos of the guys (that was the one job he had) and the photos he did get looked as though some kid shot them from an iPhone. The best man had to tell the 2nd photographer to take certain photos as he barely took any on his own. My husband didn't even get a picture with his dad on our wedding day. I was disappointed as a whole for the price we paid seeing as though it's not a day I'm going to have again. The editing came back terribly. The pictures were so discolored that you couldn't even tell the actual colors of suits/bridesmaid dresses. The editing team redid them and they are better, but not great. I wish there would've been input into what was put into the final video as certain things I would've preferred to have in there over some of the stuff they did add. After the wedding, I reached out and after many attempts, finally someone emailed me back saying they would refund the price of the 2nd photographer (and that he is no longer with the company) - however, the company never did and completely stopped responding to me. After leaving this review on multiple social media pages, someone texted me "Ashley told me to reach out" and when I responded, they never did. This was a month ago.