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Celebration Studios Ripoff – Guilty!
12
November
11/12/2009 Update:
Celebration over, as owner pleads guilty to theft
Over $930k taken from over 250 victims
Remember this story from nearly 450 days ago on Hoboken411? Well “Celebration Studios” owner Marc Schwartz finally appeared in Superior Court in Morristown, NJ yesterday – and pleaded guilty to theft for stealing from customers who paid his company for his services and never received their photos. Additionally, eight photographers he had used were also never paid for work performed for the company.
Schwartz apparently got greedy and grew his business too fast – having twelve area locations at it’s peak (including the one in Hoboken). When the economy started to tank, his high overhead left him with little extra to pay other companies used to contract out services such as wedding albums – who eventually refused to ship product until payments were made.
Customers got mad, spread the word (on websites like Hoboken411), and boom!, next thing you know – he’s doomed.
He faces punishment of up to a year of probation and eventual re-payment of some kind to the victims affected.
ORIGINAL POST – 7/23/2008:
Hoboken411 reader “ahobokenguy” sent this email about wedding photography ripoff!:
Celebration ruined because of them!
“I am not sure if you were aware of the Celebration Studios fiasco that hit NJ and the surrounding area earlier this year, and I am still waiting to hear the outcome as my wife and I have not received our wedding pictures, etc from our fall 2006 wedding and I know there are more then a few other Hoboken residents who are in the same boat and I was wondering what they were doing to get their proofs and digital masters.”
Well, since that email, there was a letter to defrauded consumers sent out by the NJ Attorney General’s office.
You can see the original report from the NY Times earlier in the year here.
Were you one of the customers that got ripped off?
July 24th 2008 - 09:12:04 |
I see – the assumption being that married couples should spend 24/7 with each other or they are doomed. Keep going please – this just gets better and better. No misconceptions at all lol…..
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July 24th 2008 - 09:51:23 |
hoboken1mile wrote:
You don’t really sound grown up enough to be married, I give it 2 more years.
Anyone want to take bets on which one cheats first? I betting on your spouse.
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July 24th 2008 - 09:52:23 |
hoboken1mile wrote:
I have to say – you really do seem like a bitter married person with this specific post. And as you “miss all the dating sites you losers go on”, that would suggest you to were one of those “losers” at one point in times…….so I wouldn’t be so quick to cast stones if I were you. In fact, your entire post sounds more like you describing your dating life than anything else. Just an observation…….but I’d put money on it being an accurate one.
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July 24th 2008 - 10:38:29 |
Im sure the divorce rate would be much hire, if poor inner city dwellers actually got married instead of just reproducing.
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July 24th 2008 - 10:45:09 |
Biffy B For Mayor wrote:
How would they get their monthly checks if the got married?
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July 24th 2008 - 10:49:25 |
kooky kat wrote:
I still trying to figure our who is being hired to make the divorce rate higher?
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July 24th 2008 - 10:50:26 |
sorry – meant to say “I still trying to figure out who is being hired to make the divorce rate higher?” I hit the r key by accident
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July 24th 2008 - 11:58:57 |
matt_72 wrote:
LOL — Ooooooops —— been interviewing peeps all day. I just asked a kid I _________ (blank) when I have to do something I dont want to do. And he said “delegate” — what balls, he has upper management written all over him.
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July 24th 2008 - 12:00:45 |
matt_72 wrote:
What about your M key — i’M sure you have one of those
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July 24th 2008 - 12:15:33 |
Ahhh – you work in HR – you must do the mayor’s hiring.
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July 24th 2008 - 12:18:41 |
Biffy – when will you start making excuses for the payroll? We have been waiting for you or someone like you to make a comment on that PDF H411 put up w/ the city payroll on it. You and all the other posters that like to defend the status quo have been very quiet since that made it on the site.
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July 24th 2008 - 12:36:02 |
No — I don’t work for the city and I dont work in HR
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July 24th 2008 - 12:40:16 |
matt_72 wrote:
Payroll looked good to me. Seemed competitive. Parking and Parks departments seemed to be a little large — not really sure why.
But if we really need to cut $10MM, does doing away with $200,000 in excess jobs really help? Does that fix what went wrong? — NO
These gaps happen — all the time. Look at the MTA — its cyclic.
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July 24th 2008 - 12:45:06 |
Parks is huge since we outsource much of the groundskeeping to landscapers. The # of crossing guards is outrageous considering the # of useless bodies at the BOE that could easily do that task 1 hour a day for free. Parking is easily 25% overstaffed. Pretty much everyone at the top of the payroll is overpaid……and overpaid by a good 20%. Shoot, you could reduce the payroll by 20% and not a single taxpaying resident would know the difference. The payroll is far from “fine”.
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November 12th 2009 - 10:32:16 |
This guy is facing up to one year probation for stealing over $930,000? WTF? Where’s the deterrent in sentencing from others doing this? Future and current criminals – forget about armed robbery, this is the crime for you! Low risk, high reward!
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