Creative Memories

As you all know, I love scrapbooking. I am very proud of the albums I have made and hope that the kids will truly appreciate all of the work and love I have put into them. I know they will. They love looking at their albums. The other night when our friend was here, we turned on Wii bowling and I asked Gage if he remembered the first time he ever went bowling. He said he didn't. I proceeded to tell him that the first time he rolled the ball down the alley, he cried and cried because he didn't think he would get the ball back. Scott said he didn't remember that. So, I went upstairs to get the album that this scrapbook page is in. It is such a precious page and the photo of Gage with his face all wrinkled up and crying is priceless. He got a big kick out of it and Scott thought it was pretty cute. I was thinking how lucky I was to have had the camera with me and that I caught that moment on film.

A few years back I learned about Creative Memories offering a new service. Persona Imprinting. They imprint the cover and spine of your albums to personalize them even more. I fell in love with it. Unfortunately, it is spendy. To imprint the spine and cover costs a little more than just the album did to begin with, but when you get them back and see how beautiful it is, it is worth every penny.

I have been working on getting all of my albums imprinted for quite awhile now. I send in a couple at a time, when we can afford it. I have a total of 11 albums imprinted. I think almost all of Emma's are imprinted and not long ago, I started on Gage's albums. I have his first album, which is his white leather album imprinted and his Preschool album imprinted. I have been dragging my feet on his albums for quite awhile because 4 of his albums are from a retired set of albums that were called scenic albums. I LOVE these album colors. Because they are retired, Creative Memories has had a disclaimer on their site that you have to check that you understand, because if something were to happen to your album, they would have to replace it with a new album that is as near to the color as possible. There haven't been any colors that could match these albums if something were to happen. However, I REALLY wanted them imprinted. I decided in late November or December that I was going to bite the bullet and send one in to see how it would turn out. At this time I sent Emma's Daisy Scout Album in along with Gage's "scenic album". When I got them back I was SO HAPPY with the results. At this time I decided I was going to send the rest of them in and yesterday, since I had the afternoon off, I decided to get that done. When I went onto the CM website and the persona imprinting link, I noticed that the scenic album colors were no longer listed in the "retired albums that we accept" list. I'm thinking, "WHAT?" I found their phone number and immediately called them up. The lady confirmed that that is true, they are no longer accepting these albums. I explained to her that I just sent one in last month to have it imprinted and it was the 1st in a series of 4 albums. She apologized and said there was nothing she could do. I was devastated to say the least. I must admit that I even cried. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have sent all 4 of them in together, OR I wouldn't have sent any of them at all. I decided to find their email address and send an email.

This is Gage's "scenic album" that I had imprinted. The color here doesn't do it justice, but it is a meadow green color.

Here are the email exchanges.

(Me)
To Whom It May Concern:

I recently sent in an album to be imprinted, that had been retired for some time. The album was from the scenic series and the color I had imprinted was Meadow. I have had over 10 albums imprinted and have been completely satisfied with the results. I was just online on the Persona web-site, preparing to have my 3 remaining albums from the scenic series (Canyon, Sand and Brook) imprinted and I am no longer able to locate these retired colors in the list of albums. Can you please let me know what I need to do to order to get these 3 remaining albums imprinted.

Thank you so much for your time.

(Them)

Good evening Stacy,

I'm so happy to hear how pleased you are with your Persona Imprinting orders. Unfortunately, we no longer accept the albums you mentioned for this service. This decision went into effect on December 1, 2008. I truly apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.Thank you for taking the time to contact us and please feel free to do so in the future.Enjoy your day!

Marie M.

Consultant Services

(Me)

Dear Mary,

I sure wish I would have known this was going to happen. There was nothing posted on the web-site regarding this decision to no longer accept these albums for imprinting. Had I known, I would have sent all of them in at the same time, or none of them at all. I'm sure this seems like some trivial little matter that I should just "get over", but I have ruined my album set by having one imprinted and am unable to imprint the remaining three. Is there any way possible, that I can get these 3 albums imprinted? I will sign a waiver or whatever it takes. If there is someone else I need to talk to regarding this matter, please let me know. I'm desperate.

Sincerely,

Stacy Stephens

(Them)

Good morning Stacy,

I do understand your concern and frustration regarding this matter. It is certainly not trivial. Unfortunately, we are not able to make any exceptions for you; I even pleaded your case to my supervisor to no avail. Again, I truly apologize for the inconvenience.Thank you for taking the time to contact us and please feel free to do so in the future.Enjoy your day!

Marie M.

Consultant Services

(Me)

Mary,

I don't understand why an exception cannot be made? Isn't this MY risk to make? There was nothing posted on the web-site regarding this decision to no longer accept these albums. As I said before, if there had been a note regarding this decision on the web-site, I would have sent all 4 albums in at the same time, or not at all. It might be a good idea to send out mass emails to your return customers of these decisions so they can make informed ones regarding their albums. It's unfortunate and I cannot even express how sad this makes me. Not that it matters to anyone, but it brought tears to my eyes. All I guess I can say is that I'm sorry I ever started imprinting my albums since all of my completed albums are imprinted (11) and no one will make any exceptions to allow my remaining 3 to be imprinted. I will certainly let everyone I know of the risk they will be taking if they choose to start imprinting any of their albums.

Stacy Stephens

Crap! While I was copying and pasting these emails to my blog, I just realized I called her Mary and her name was Marie......................maybe that's where I screwed up?

(Them)

Hello Stacy,

We apologize for your frustration. This date of the discontinuation was indeed noted to the Consultants in their Scraps Magazines back in May. We apologize this was not communicated better to the customers but we are not able to make any exceptions. If the design of your choice or a particular size of album is not on the albums to be accepted list, we are unable to make any exceptions as of 12/31/2008. Creative Memories has now reconfigured the computer hardware that links to the machines therefore we are unable to switch back to the former designs. If we switched backwards this would be too timely and expensive.We again apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We hope that you are willing to choose another design. If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to contact us at 1-888-227-6748 and one of our helpful Consultant Service Representatives will be more than happy to assist you.

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Tricia V.

Consultant Services

After this email, I saw, perhaps, a glimmer of hope! Afterall, it's not the design I'm having problems with, it's the simple fact that they won't allow me to put a design on these remaining albums. I decided I would call the number and explained the whole story, once again, to another person. When I mentioned the names of the colors of these albums, she abruptly said they were not imprinting these albums and longer. I think maybe the whole department knows my name now. When she said this, I just busted out crying. I think she probably was thinking I am a lunatic. I got nowhere with this and decided to send Tricia an email.

(Me)

Tricia, (At least I got the name right this time!)

It is not the album design I'm concerned about. I understand that the designs change and I use a different design each time I have an album imprinted anyway. I have been imprinting all of my albums and just started working on my son's albums because I have all of my daughter's albums imprinted. I sent in his 12x12 Meadow album (from the retired scenic series) in December and had it imprinted. My plan was to get the remaining albums in this series imprinted and now I am no longer allowed to do this. I was not made aware of this decision by any consultant, and it was not posted on the web-site. There are still retired 12x12 albums being accepted for imprinting, so I don't understand why the color of my albums would have anything to do with reconfiguring computer hardware?

Stacy Stephens

(Them)

Hi Stacy,

Thank you for contacting us back. Again I apologize that we are no longer accepting all of the retired albums for imprinting at this time. The only albums we are accepting are the ones listed on the Persona site.If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Sharon L.

Consultant Services

(Me)

I would just like a real explanation of why these albums cannot be imprinted.

Stacy Stephens

I have not yet heard back from this email. They have been very good and quick about responding, so my prayer is that they have gone to a higher leveled person to help me out. In the meantime, I have been looking for websites of other companies that offer album imprinting. I have found a few, but haven't done much with it until I decide I have exhausted all my options with Creative Memories. I know that if I have the album imprinted with another company it will void all guarantees and warranties on my album.

I'm sure most of you (the non-scrapbooking, non-anal retentive readers) think this is silly and I should just get over it. The few of you who are anal scrapbookers, probably know where I'm coming from. I am an ALL OR NONE kind of person. I either want it ALL or I want NONE. I am not going to settle with ONE! I don't know where this is all going to lead to, but if I have to get Rhonda Anderson, one of the Creative Memories co-founders involved, I will! I probably should start googling her name and see if I can find out how to contact her. I'm not ready to give up yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do in regards to this problem?