BEWARE OF MICHIGAN WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER & VIDEOGRAPHER

Whatever you do, if you are looking for a wedding photographer or videographer from Michigan, do not, I repeat DO NOT hire AMERICAN ELITE STUDIOS!!!!! They are a complete rip off and scam company owned by Nafeh Abunab who will take your money and will not give you your product. I paid over $4200.00 for wedding pictures and videos and after numerous attempts, he has not given me my product. I got married and paid in full OCT 2002 to Nafeh under Vogue Studios in Dearborn Heights, MI. He said he is not going to give me my pictures and video anymore because he doesn`t have to.. He said he went bankrupt under Vogue. I checked into it, and it isn`t true.. He nor any of his businesses went bankrupt... He just doesn`t want to give us our pictures or video. I went to his studio again and he gave me some of the negatives and some of the proofs and told me to pay someone else to do the pictures. He also said he finished the video.. But to our surprise when we popped in the DVDs he gave us.. He didn`t... He gave us TWO BLANK DVDs and said this is the finished product!!!!!!! It is an absolute nightmare! If you are smart.. Do not hire Nafeh Abunab from AMERICAN ELITE STUDIOS to do any of your wedding.. Or you might just be scammed like we were.
Posted by Tina; updated 05/20/08

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Tina Contracted Vogue Studios, a corporation that went out of business in 2004. According to her contract she had 6 months to fulfill her package, other wise she looses it, or pays the difference between the old price and new price to keep her package. We shot her wedding and videotaped it, and posted her proofs, and she ordered them and received them in timely manner.
I didn`t hear from her again till 2005! When she called out of the blue to say she was deployed in Iraq ( a lie we discovered later, only her husband was) and she said she has the honeymoon photos to be used to finish her video. I informed her that she lost her package, and Vogue Studios no longer exists, but because I fell for her lie that she was in Iraq, I said send me the honeymoon photos and I`ll see what I can do. I didn`t hear from her again till end of 2007, where again she called out of the blue and said she finally made her sellection for the photographs to go in her bridal album.
Again I informed her that she has lost her package, and to send me her sellection and I`ll see what I can do.
Her wedding was photographed back in 2002 in the age of film and video, not digital. Everything has changed, there are very few labs left who work with film if any. The thousands of rolls of film, lucky for her, were not thrown out, but stored in a basement in boxes. I couldn`t find them. And told her so. She asked if she could search herself, and I agreed. They showed up unannounced, without appointment, and I bought them pizza and told them to search. They lucked out and found them. I explained again to them that they lost their package, but due to their patriotism, I was personally, find a lab that still prints film and process the order, but they have to be patient as it is a tideious process to go through the negatives and find the photos to be printed. That was in January of this year. Every week since, they were calling me twice or 3 times, early in the morning, late at night, all odd hours, asking about their photos, and kept telling them not to hound me, that I am very busy, and they take time, but once they`re finished I`ll call them. They show up in March unanounced and without appointment, on a Friday, before I have to go to shoot a wedding, and go on an emotional breakdown how these photographs are the most important thing in her life (all of sudden 5 years later!) and told them the photos are at the lab being printed (a small lab an hour drive) and that I would pick them for them monday and they can pick them up tuesday. They insisted and said give us everything U got now. I gave them their proofs, negatives, and vidoe.
They never came back to pick up their enlargments, and have gone on a crazy campaign demanding their money back. The wrote to the BBB, contacted TV stations, wrote to the Michigan attorney general, and they call got the facts and came back and told them they breached the agreement due their negligence and they were unrealistic in expecting their products let alone their money back, and that what I`ve done for them was beyond what anybody would do.
I don`t know what financial problems they have to think that by posting these lies they could pressure me into paying them to shut up.
This is the truth.
Posted by Nafeh AbuNab; updated 08/14/08