- Report: #1158194
Complaint Review: Pump It Up Sorrento Valley CA - San Diego California
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Author Not Confirmed
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Pump It Up Sorrento Valley CA
9370 Waples St #102 San Diego, 92121 California, USA
Phone:
(858) 658-9968
Web:
http://www.pumpitupparty.com/san-diego-ca
Categories:
Business Rating:
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Pump It Up Sorrento Valley, CA Pump It Up Sorrento Valley is Negligent, Takes No Responsibility San Diego California
Pump it Up Sorrento Valley (Mira Mesa) destroyed the memories of my son's 4th birthday party with their negligence & faulty processes. The owner Lance took no responsibility nor did he compensate us for the loss. Although he did offer us a $150 coupon (less than half of what I paid for the package) to come back & "re-do" my son's 4th birthday party, but compressed into a 1 hour block of course because that's all that $150 gets you in this overpriced venue. Any parent knows (this guy claims to be a parent but apparently can't relate) that you don't just "re-do" a party of 20+ kids & many more adults, after every one had already blocked their calendars & planned for weeks/months ahead just to make it the first time. Genius Lance. Keep the coupon, I have plenty of Monopoly money at home worth a lot more to me than your coupons, since I'll never be doing business with you again.
We booked a party for 20+ kids & adults, & were told *photography* was to be included in the package, that all image files would be available to take home the day of the party, or to download at a later time, whichever was more convenient. We *SAW* that many photos were actually taken during the party, because they were displayed prominently in a presentation during the cake cutting at the end of the party. Several more pics were taken in the cake room of my son & his cousins/friends eating cake & posing etc.
Then at the end, when I paid in full for the package (Pump it Up's not cheap, hundreds of dollars) I was told that photo files were subject to an extra $20 "download fee" with no option to just save and take home (?) All party photos are handled through a 3rd party platform. They said no matter what, all images would be available for download for 30 days & gave me a link to the photos. So we go to download the photos a couple of days later & find that in the folder for our party, there are only *3* very poor photos in the online repository. They were not even worth downloading because we would never print & use them, almost couldn't tell who was in the pictures. We knew there were many more than this taken because we all sat in the cake room & saw the presentation cycling through the pictures from our party.
So we called Pump It Up Sorrento Valley & told them the situation, hoping this was just a harmless mistake & that they would obviously have a back-up copy of the pics, or that they just uploaded our photos to the wrong folder, etc. After a few minutes on the phone with them, the picture being painted quickly became distressing as the employee on the phone basically could not find the pics, could not explain what happened, & told my wife that there must have been some kind of technical problem & would have to talk to the owner & get back to us.
When Lance, the owner of Pump it Up did call us back. The short version was:
"Our entire photo platform is automated. I am not a technical guy. I don't really know how it works (read: it might as well be magic as far as I am concerned.) The system handles hundreds of parties, & it all just happens by itself when we plug in the cameras(like magic). Yes, hundreds of parties & this has never happened before* (but congratulations! it happened to you!) There was an unexplained "technical glitch" & your photos were lost. There are no backup files. It's all handles by a 3rd party platform, it's not Pump it Up's equipment, so we have no control (we're helpless!) But let me tell you sir, If we could find those photos, we would definitely give them back to you (to make you go away & quit bothering us about this.) Sorry."
When I asked Lance for at least a partial refund, he took a day to discuss with his business partner & wife, who apparently had no empathy for us, because the answer was "No! But hey, we'll put a worthless coupon in the mail so that you can inconvenience whatever small percentage of guests nice enough to come back to Pump it Up for a "re do" of my son's party, primarily to get pics since "re-doing" a birthday party would never be the same as the actual event no matter how hard anyone tried to replicate it, & the photos would obviously reflect that.
Finally, I just want to let Lance know that by alienating us he has also lost out on thousands of dollars of referrals that he easily would have had from my son's classmates at his Montessori school (at least 5 parents showed interest.) I do mean "alienating", literally - The minute I asked for some kind of compensation, Lance went running, avoided all communication, refused to return polite messages requesting a call back. Way to go dude you're the "man"..!
Appears you are willing to sacrifice your reputation to save a few bucks. We have shared all of these details with his classmates families. BTW, this is principle. Any compensation offered falls very short of replacing the lost record & memories, but how you handled it added insult to injury.
