Darrin James was hired as my wedding photographer in Dubai in December 2005. Its now 2017 and I have no photos no album. I paid him a lot of cash up front in 2005. He disappeared after my wedding, and dragged the hunt on back and forth for three years. By then I was fed up and had already had my child. I decided to file a court case, as I felt taken advantage of and scammed. I filed a case against him through lawyers in Dubai Courts.The cost of legal fees, in addition to what I had paid him already in full for the photography and photo albums by 2011 mounted to a lot of money which I could not afford but I felt so ripped off I felt I had to fight. Needless to say the court system here is slightly different then back home in Canada, and when I received the result and he was fined, but the amount I received was only to pay the remaining legal fees and he was no where to be found to be forced to provide the high resolution photos of my wedding. We then found out that he had left the UAE.
For those of you who may not know when I hired him in 2005 he was living in London and was a visiting photographer so he had no excuse to do this.
He did this to so many other people I've heard. Sadly he was recommended to me by my wedding planner who is a well known lady in Dubai still to this day all over the media social scene in most of the UAE event magazines. This is to date one of the worst scam experiences in my life as certain family members who could not make it to our Dubai wedding never had a chance to see our wedding photos and when my son now 10 years old asks me why I don't have any wedding photos I feel awful.
He is a horrible person with no morals, no values and no ethics. If anyone else has heard of similar scams he has done, please share here and online. BTW I don't believe that his local clients did not pay him. he is such a liar and professional scammer. his policy is pay upfront 100%. I attended a local wedding in year 2011 before he fled the country and they paid upfront in full. He did the same to them and I later found out it was his team there photographing the wedding.
