|
Click for larger images
Brides jilted by video firm
(WCPO/WCPO.com)
Video firm investigated
(WCPO/WCPO.com)
Graphic on firm's website
(WCPO/WCPO.com)
Graphic on firm's website
(WCPO/WCPO.com)
|
Photographed by: Anthony Mirones
Clyde: Going to a wedding soon? May begins the most popular season for couples to say "I Do".
Carol: But they're saying much more than that to the I-Team. They say a local company took advantage of their vulnerability on their most special day. Hagit Limor joins us with an investigation that's gone nationwide.
Hagit: We heard from couples all over the United States -- complaining about a business here in the Tri-State -- that promised to videotape their weddings, but left them in tears. And we're not talking, tears of joy.
Taped Report:
It's that irreplaceable moment
A moment couples pay big bucks to capture on tape
A moment that's vanished into memory for brides across the country who blame a company right here in the Tri-State.
Hagit: "You have brides in tears all over the United States. What would you say to them?" Kruer: "That's not true."
Mandy Carpency: (crying) "It's not even the money. I don't want the money."
Mandy Carpency near Baltimore,
Angelina Mendez in Chicago: "Really, really upsetting."
And Stacy Calvin here in Cincinnati: "It's been really frustrating."
Swear on their wedding vows, it IS true.
Crisandra Harrison: "I'd get extremely stressed out and just break down and cry because I wanted the video."
But the wedding videos these couples ordered -- which they say cost up to $1495 -- didn't come for six months to almost two years after their weddings.
Dr. Cynthia Plate:"I cannot do this day again. I cannot repeat the emotions, the love, the joy."
The brides say they left repeated messages but only got the runaround, from the firm "A Solid Gold Sound". This despite a Solid Gold Guarantee and repeated verbal and email promises that the videos were on the way.
Stacy Calvin: "My fear now is that I'm never going to see my wedding video, that I'm never going to capture that footage of that wonderful day."
Mandy Carpency: " The big thing was my ceremony. I just don't know what I looked like. I don't remember my vows."
And the brides aren't the only ones who feel jilted. Andy Rodbell: "I was really shaking my head, 'How could I have gotten myself into this situation?'"
Wedding videographer Andy Rodbell subcontracted for "A Solid Gold Sound" in the Baltimore area 'til, like other videographers the I-Team's found in other cities, he started getting calls from brides who never got the tapes he shot and then sent to A Solid Gold Sound. Andy Rodbell: "I feel really awful, really awful. If it happened to me I would be outraged."
So how did brides across the country hook up with a company in our back yard?
Google the common words "wedding video", and you'll see "A Solid Gold Sound" has spent some of its gold to buy top billing on the search engine.
Crisandra Harrison: "I did a couple of different searches and they were the top link for every one. They're at the top of it. So I figured if they're referenced so much, they must be good."
Especially because she thought A Solid Gold Sound was a hometown firm.
Bryan Harrison: "The whole time we think this company is somewhere in Columbia."
Mandy Carpency: "I was getting married in Rockville. I hired a company I thought was in Rockville."
Just like Stacy Calvin believed it was near Mason, and Angelina Mendes was sure she dialed Chicago.
The I-Team found "A Solid Gold Sound" has phone numbers and addresses in cities all over the United States, from Pawtucket, Rhode Island to Seattle, Washington and many points in between.
But in the end, the I-Team traced A Solid Gold Sound through its corporate name, Syn Corp of Kentucky, past the many drop boxes across the country and in our own back yard, to Edgewood, Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati, to a nondescript office in this house on Dudley Road.
Tony Kramer/Edgewood Police Chief: "We've been getting complaints."
Hagit on camera: Edgewood Police Chief Tony Kramer says his department's opened a file on "A Solid Gold Sound" but filed no criminal charges because the company's providing part of the service - shooting the video. Customers would have to sue in civil court to get the tape. Kramer: "It's frustrating for them and it's frustrating for us as well as a police agency. / We're trying to decide how best to move forward at this point."
So is the Kentucky Attorney General's Office, refusing an interview because "We currently have an ongoing investigation regarding the company." The I-Team's also found complaints with the Maryland Attorney General and has learned of two federal investigations
Kurt Douglass: Secret Service/Agent in Charge: "The Secret Service does have jurisdiction in investigating a variety of financial frauds, but specifically credit card fraud." Hagit: "So that is why you are investigating?" Douglass: "Yes."
Leslie Kish: "They have an unsatisfactory rating." Finally, the Cincinnati Better Business Bureau has fielded 57 complaints, and other bureaus across the country report dozens more. Hagit: "Is that an unusual number?" Kish: "It's a higher number of complaints."
Angelina Mendez: "I feel like I was taken advantage of, and it's even worse because it's one of the most vulnerable times in your life."
Hagit: "I'm Hagit Limor with the I-Team."
John Kruer runs "A Solid Gold Sound."
Hagit: "You have complaints at attorneys general in various states, at the police department here, at Better Business Bureaus across the United States, on the internet, with us. How do you explain that?" John Kruer: "When you have 125,000 customers you don't please them all."
Kruer claims a huge customer base over 25 years that's growing rapidly. Kruer: "We do our best to take care of all of our customers just like any good, Christian business does."
Crisandra Harrison: "He told me I was ridiculous."
Cynthia Plate: "Started screaming at me."
Harrison: "And he kept yelling at me."
Stacy Calvin: "I keep getting the runaround."
Cynthia Plate: "He's trying to be a bully. How could he take advantage of people like that?"
Hagit: "Are you taking advantage of some people's vulnerability here by not giving them their videotape?" Kruer: "Absolutely no. Is that clear enough for you?"
Kruer dismisses the most common fear we heard: Mandy Carpency: "I'm never going to get a video."
Kruer: "That is patently false. Can I state it any clearer? Would you like to hear it in a different language? German, Latin, Greek?"
He blames any delays on an editor who couldn't handle the volume, 'though he doesn't explain why we kept hearing this:
Stacy Calvin: "They said that they had shipped it."
Miguel Bautista: "We should have gotten it."
Stacy Calvin: "Then they said I would receive it by the Christmas holiday."
Miguel Bautista: "And it had been sent out that morning."
Stacy Calvin: "Then again by the New Year."
Kruer: "We have done our very best to take care of our customers. / We never lie to the customer, tell them anything but the truth."
Hagit: "Many of the addresses that were provided look like office numbers but they really were drop boxes. Is that not misleading customers?" Kruer: "No, ma'am. Would you like to tell Mailboxes etc. and the UPS store that they run a misleading business?" Hagit: "No, it's you that's being accused of being misleading, not them."
Kruer: "I don't care what you think or anyone else thinks. I care what my customers think."
Angelina Mendez: "Unprofessional."
Stacy Calvin: "Frustrating."
Crisandra Harrison: "I get livid."
Mendez: "It's ruthless."
Hagit: "What would you say to them?" Kruer: "That information is false." Hagit: "You don't agree with those characterizations." Kruer: "Absolutely not. Look lady, we run an honest business. Our business is growing at 40% a year. That doesn't happen because you mistreat people. However are we perfect? I'm human. The last time I checked I'm a human being."
Mandy Carpency: "I just wanted the video / I'll never get it back."
Hagit on set: Since we began our research and approached A Solid Gold Sound, some but not all of these clients have received videos, 'though some say they're not what they ordered. That's the case with three clients Mr. Kruer's attorney pointed out to us in a letter this afternoon. And we just got word late this afternoon that yet another agency, the Kenton County Prosecutors Office, also has opened an investigation.
Kruer called me Thursday to reiterate everyone will get their videos in four to six weeks. The couples say that's the same promise they got when they first signed up with A Solid Gold Sound.
