Lifetouch Reviews 149

This company is terrible. The pictures are horrible. I have never seen a good picture from them. Such a waste of money. Do not purchase school pictures. Just take them with your iPhone or android and they will be 100 times better. You could even go to JcPenny’s or somewhere like that and get a way better picture of your child.

This company is still in the mid-20th century with it’s product offerings. Maybe some might want 35 wallets sized photos, 6 4x5, 5x7s, and 8x10 printed portraits but in the world I live in everyone’s photos are on their phone or they have one on the wall for themselves and a few family members. But all my family want is a pic they can pull up on their phone gallery.

The ONLY digital option is for a $250 CD of EVERY shot (blinking eyes and all). Who even has a CD rom in their computers anymore?

This company needs digital options. If they can’t make money through a bunch of useless prints, then charge a sitting fee, but get with the 21st century here.

Lifetouch is one of those companies that seem to appear at virtually every school photo session. They've been doing my school photos since I started school in southern Ontario. My mother has never actually purchased prints from them, so I can't speak for the quality (although, looking at reviews of their parent company Shutterfly, you may be better off getting prints elsewhere). And, at my June graduation ceremony from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were there, doing photos of convocation.

For such a momentous occasion, I thought I'd take the liberty of purchasing photos from them this time. The university told me that Lifetouch was doing the photos and that if I didn't get an access link for the photos via email in a few months, to contact them directly.

September came and no email arrived, so I tried to contact them. I say "tried" because it wasn't obvious at all where I should go to contact customer service. I tried searching on events.lifetouch.com, but as I did not have an access link, I could not access my proofs. I found a live chat and was able to reach someone who said they were working on the case. The problem was that the live chat session would automatically close if you did not say anything for more than five minutes. My patience was rewarded with a message rudely telling me that my session had been closed for inactivity. I tried again and got someone that said they couldn't help me because I was in Canada, and that I had reached the U.S. customer support. Getting more frustrated, I called the phone number provided on their website, and was given an email address that connected directly to the photographers that did the photos.

I emailed the address explaining the situation. I realized then that I had had to explain my story three times, indicating that there was no coordination whatsoever between the different branches of their customer support department. I got an email response a few days later again passing me off to another phone number. Make that *four* times I've had to re-tell my story.

I called the number and the agent acknowledged the unfavourable circumstance of being bounced around incessantly. I gave them an email address to contact me with, and they told me they would reach out within a week with the access link to get my photos.

One full month passed. No email came in.

I called the same number I called last time, spent a minute in the queue, and then my call was unceremoniously ended, without anybody talking to me. Losing my patience, I checked the Lifetouch website again, and found all of the photo proofs for the event—all available publicly, no password protection or access code required. Anyone could buy anybody's photos.

I'm a photographer myself. I've done paid photoshoots before. There is absolutely no way that I would ever find this debacle of taking people's photos, not sending them the link to access the photos, bouncing them around when they contact me, and then just making all of their photos public with no security or protection, to be remotely acceptable.

I was finally able to pay for my digital downloads, and will update this review if I receive the product I paid for. I'm not holding my breath and may have to resort to a credit card chargeback if I don't get anything. For a company as large and prominent as Lifetouch, the level of customer service is utterly abysmal. Remember that I was *trying* to be a customer and buy my own photos! I can't imagine any company that would ever want to make it hard for someone to buy their products, but Lifetouch does just that. I am unimpressed, and simply cannot recommend doing business with Lifetouch.

UPDATE: My digital downloads did arrive by email—rotated sideways. For $60 a picture, you'd expect them to at least send it to you right side up. My face in my portrait shot was blurry, and the angle of me greeting the faculty was unflattering, hiding both our faces. I bought these only because it was a special occasion, but rest assured that I have no interest in spending another dime or minute with this company.

After paying for an over priced digital copy of my son's very first school photo I didn't receive a confirmation email so I used the live-chat customer service on their site and had to ask several times to have a confirmation email sent out. After months of hearing nothing from them I once again used the live chat feature to inquire about my order. I politely expressed that I was not happy with the service I've had so far and that I was concerned I would not get the picture since I hadn't received anything from them and the representative (Tamar) immediately ended the chat blocked my IP. I saved the chat dialogue though. So after having to use a VPN to reconnect and speak to another lifetouch chat-associate to ask how to proceed with filing a complaint I am waiting on hold. I expect a refund and the digital copy of a school photo I paid almost $20 for over 3 months ago. If I could give these guys a 0 I would. Do literally anything else but give these clowns your money or time.

Ugly pictures. I paid $18 for premium retouching. Sadly it only applies to physical prints. Smh. So your digital image will not be retouched. I contacted customer service and says it only applies to physical prints.

Lifetouch is who my children's school chose in 2020 for their school pics. I have been disappointed nonstop. The first year my daughters picture came in with her looking like she hates the world. Awful! 2021 we were told to take our own pictures with a white background and upload the pictures to their site (because of the pandemic/shut down). There was no discount, considering we were being our own photographers. So, I opted out of that mess.
This year I ordered again - $40.96 for TWO 8x10s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND - I ordered them 3 weeks ago, but the only information I can get is: "Shipped." So helpful. When I click on the link to "View Images" it takes me to a page filled with pictures from 2020. Um... Not helpful.......
Not using them again. I will be using anyone I find on IG or FB and avoiding Lifetouch at all costs from here on!

Poor technical execution. I've placed two orders with Lifetouch online in the last year and they've both been messed up. Lifetouch and Shutterfly have apparently "teamed" up and what that means I don't know but when I tried to log in and give the portrait ID, none of it worked and I was finally prompted to open a Shutterfly account, which I didn't want. Confirmation emails were then received and then one from Shutterfly giving me access to the digital photos. The photos were the right school, right sport, wrong boy. Given that Lifetouch had messed up my last order I felt I should reach out as I was likely about to receive the wrong photos. Of course the contact number on the Shutterfly email took me to a person that couldn't help me because I needed to speak to Lifetouch that apparently wasn't that close of a "team" member; this errant attempt to find a solution took 15 minutes. I was given a number for Lifetouch, put on hold, dropped, called again, put on hold, spoke to a person that could not understand me and put me on repeated holds in order to get me to the right person. The person I ended up with was pleasant and helpful but sometimes I wonder if we eliminated the phrase " Mr. X I do apologize" from their lexicon would they be able to communicate at all - stop with the pre-scripted responses! This poor technical execution, poor representation of the Lifetouch + Shutterfly relationship, and added complexity brought on by an overzealous sales effort that overwhelms the resources they dedicate to providing customer service is all too commonplace. These are management decisions. The poor front line workers are left to clean up their poor marketing decisions, their lack of clarity and they're asked to do it with little or no resources. Proven by the fact that you're constantly on hold waiting for someone. This just a common theme in most of these tech adjacent industries. They also asked me to delete the photos of the young man they sent. The thought that my underage son's photos might be sent to some rando did disturb me.

Non-existent customer support and the pricing is actually terrible. Their event images are often medium to smaller in size. Overall, I have an issue that could be easily resolved by talking to a person, but their phone line is trash, and their online live chat representative is not authorized to do jack crap.

Horrible experiences every time we order pictures from this company. Placed an order 2nd week of November & here it is the end of January without our pics. Customer service emails go unanswered! Unbelievable, luckily I used PayPal & will be getting restitution one way or another.....