I am never going to use Jessops again for anything that involves instore processing or enlargements. The only thing I might use is their E6 service which takes 2 weeks but is quite cheap and good quality.
A couple of months ago, I went to get a couple of enlargements from them. I wanted one 12 x 8" and one 9 x 6". They didn't seem to have a clue over what price I should pay. Their website said it should be about £4.50. They told me it was £8.00!! I can get it cheaper than that from a pro lab. I disagreed and asked to speak to the manager who asked me where I got the web prices from. I said that I searched google and the relavent page on the Jessops site came up first. She told me that they couldn't access google from the shop and told me to bring in a printout of the prices when I collected them so I could pay then.
A week later I came in and collected them, the person serving me didn't seem to know anything about conventional film enlargements and assumed the frame numbers were how many prints of a digital image I wanted! After 10 mins of searching she eventually worked out that they were reprints when I told her they were from colour print negatives and she found them then. Without even looking at my printout, she charged me only £4.00!
I was even more annoyed when I got home to find that there was a big white blot on the 12 x 8 print and there were scratches all over it that were certainly not on the original prints. I thought about complaining but didn't bother in the end.
Jessops needs to actually train its staff about photography and not just how to operatate a machine and there needs to be a much clearer pricing structure for film reprints and other services as nowhere seems to agree. Their staff from what I found out also don't seem to know basic stuff about DSLR's either, I overheard a woman getting a DSLR for her husband talk to a shop assistant. The woman admitted she knew little about photography and asked which DSLR would be better to get around the £500 mark. What the assistant came up with amazed and shocked me. She said that having a smaller ISO range decreses quality as files are bigger so more compression is needed (who knows where that came from??:bonk
and that none of the £500 mark cameras had video when 2 of them actually did. The saleswoman didn't seem to know about particular cameras and when asked what live view was she said it was not a very useful feature so don't bother about it! The woman she was "helping" just seemed even more confused. After the saleswoman had gone, I went to the woman and corrected some of the points the saleswoman had said. She thanked me and said she was going to try somewhere else as she felt that Jessops staff didn't know anything and were unhelpful.
Jessops just need to clean up their act and learn basic stuff.