Photographer lost all my wedding photos

來源: 2012-06-28 21:06:01 [博客] [舊帖] [給我悄悄話] 本文已被閱讀:

My civil wedding ceremony was held in Virginia, and I hired a professional photographer from DC to take photos during and after the ceremony. I have paid his fees in full and also paid extra to cover his travel cost and tips. A few weeks later, the photographer told me by email that his computer had crashed and he had lost all my photos. I immediately asked him to contact a professional data recovery service, but he took the computer to a repair shop, which probably did further damage to the hard drive/data, and told me that my precious photos had gone to "the hard drive heaven"!

I sent him an email demanding the following compensations: 

(1) a total refund for the wedding session + tips and the travel fee; and
(2) his hard drive that contained the photos + $300 (we will try to hire a professional recovery service to hopefully retrieve the data).

The email was sent two weeks ago, but the photographer has not responded ever since. I am very upset that the photographer has lost our precious wedding photos (before I even get to see them) due to his negligence and human errors, and he is now even ignoring my request after he has failed to deliver the service.

How can I take legal action against him (to make him give me the refund and hopefully the hard drive)? Unfortunately, I do not know his physical address, only his name, business website and Facebook account, email, and phone #.

Do I need to hire a lawyer or I can file a claim in the court by myself? Which court and in which state?

What should I do? Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!