Complaint Review: OklahomaPartyPics.com

I had an experience with Oklahomapartypics.com aka NormanPartyPics.com aka Candid Color Systems, Inc. which was very similar to the previous photographer's experience. I also responded to a Craigslist ad this semester for a photography job with NormanPartyPics.com. I was immediately hired and trained on a 10 minute powerpoint. They promised to pay me .25 cents for each sellable image I shot with bonus pay after 300 images per event and .25 cents for every email I collected; then sent me out to take as many photos as possible at OU home games and campus events, promising to pay me well for my efforts.

Once hired, NormanPartyPics.com then asked me to recruit my fraternity friends and sorority sisters to help work game days and help secure more events for them to shoot. I did so, bringing more OU students to work for them. They screwed all of us!

At the first game-day training the owner/manager Steve Fosey promised we could each make at the very least nearly $20 per hour or $100 a day working the OU games for him. We all shot hundreds of photos each game and event. However, our pay was closer to $3 to $5 per hour after they 'graded' our photos unworthy, finding any and all absurd excuses to 'grade' our photos not 'sellable' or good enough to pay us for. However, they still posted each and every one of my photos on their website for sale to unwitting consumers - the very same photos they 'graded' not 'sellable' nor good enough to pay me for! My friends later complained the exact same thing happened to them.

By the OU/Air Force game September 19, 2010 owner/manager Steve Fosey had changed our pay rate rules, decreasing our per photo pay to .15 cents per 'sellable' frame unless we shot more than 300 'sellable' frames. Several weeks later he changed the rules yet again to no pay unless we also brought in at least 20% in email addresses, i.e. for every 100 'sellable' photos we shot we had to collect at least 20 new email addresses from the people we shot or simply not be paid at all! (And yes, I also later learned they are still spamming the same people I promised they wouldn't spam).

Because this was my only job and source of income and because I enjoyed taking pictures, I reluctantly stayed, even though all of my friends had by then quit. However, the next home game when I learned the company was making nearly $15,000 to $20,000 each game in almost pure profits from the photos we spent all day bringing him and not being paid for, I quit. I won't even mention here the inappropriate rude and gross comments the middle-aged (and I think married) owner/manager Steve Fosey made toward me and other pretty girls working there for him; however, I will suggest this company needs a sexual harassment policy and training.

I strongly discourage any other OU students from working at NormanPartyPics.com aka Oklahomapartypics.com aka Candid Color Systems, Inc. Any OU student can make more money and maintain more self respect and dignity picking up aluminum cans along the roadside. I will also strongly discourage our unsuspecting alumni from doing any future business with them as well. They totally ruined my semester here and hope you read this post before they have a chance to ruin yours.

In conclusion, I regret the day I responded to this company's fraudulent employment offer. I am extremely sorry to all of the other honest hard working OU students I encouraged to work there, especially the other females. It is sad and pathetic this company which survives on the photographs it sells from our games, our graduations and our greek events at the University of Oklahoma uses and abuses the very same OU students which are responsible for its huge profits. They don't care about us OU students because they think we are all nave college kids they can easily screw over - and they know, just like this semester, there will be a fresh new crop of us next year for them to harvest.