We hired David M. Davad (dba Matrimovie) to film our wedding in July. As was the case with at least two other individuals I noticed on this website, Mr. Davad (and I use the term Mr. Lightly) failed in every way to fulfill his portion of our contract with him.
My wife met with Mr. Davad to sign the agreement, and when she started reading the fine print of his so-called standard contract, he told her it was just that and she could sign without worry. I will say that Mr. Davad comes across, when he's selling something, as a very nice person, and he was very nice at our wedding and reception.
However, after we had not heard anything from him by September my wife (who is much more patient than I) attempted to contact Matrimovie for a status update. We were told that we were in the queue, and it would be approximately another month.
No problem from our end there. But, after another month, my wife contacted them again (only way to get any response was via email, they never answered the phone and never responded to voice mails that were left). Same response, he's working on it and it will be another month.
As the Holidays approached, we became more anxious as we deeply wanted to be able to watch our wedding on our first Christmas together. Unfortunately, we continued to play this game with Mr. Davad. As we live in Minneapolis, we couldn't justify wasting our time to personally visit Mr. Davad (which is probably a good thing).
At this point, I became involved in first trying to call, then emailing Mr. Davad. At this point, we were told that we had submitted our additional information (music, photos, etc.) late, and were at the bottom of the list, and despite his previous statements that he was working on our video, he had not started it. Needless to say, we were incredulous, as we had submitted all required materials on time, and had not heard any of this previously.
When I finally mentioned legal action, Mr. Davad referred me to his contract, which as stated by other respondents on this site, states numerous times that he cannot be sued. Had I or my wife actually taken the appropriate time to review this so-called contract, this would've raised a red flag immediately. However, given the incredible length and tiny print in the document, and Mr. Davad's seeming honesty, we did not, shame on us.
We also had an attorney review the document, who also noted that the contract was not a valid contract. When I threatened legal action again to Mr. Davad, we received a message from his wife (who also seemed to be very nice) that he "doesn't deal well with pushy customers" as she apologized and promised he would do a fantastic job on our video. We then let things settle for a couple of weeks, but after no response, contacted him again with threat of legal action.
At this time, the Matrimovie website was down, the phone number had been disconnected, and the only contact we received was an email asking for our contact/mailing information (which we had provided several times throughout this process).
After a couple of weeks, we finally received a box from Matrimovie (which we were slightly hesitant to open, given Mr. Davad's behavior and comments) that contained the raw footage from our wedding along with the additional information, and a badly photocopied notice of bankruptcy for Matrimovie. We had our attorney review this document, and were told that the bankruptcy claims were not valid, that the statutes cited were non-existent, etc.
Unfortunately, Mr. Davad by this time had dropped off the map, so we were not able to contact him further. We were just happy to have received our raw footage, which we have since had edited into a beautiful video (by my brother, at no cost). However, we are still out the $2,000 or so that we paid Mr. Davad for his services, which were to have included a fully edited DVD.
This person apparently has started a new business in Florida. I sincerely hope that no one falls for his incredibly unethical business practices. Do not believe his niceness, he is a fraud. The only positive we can take from the experience of dealing with a crook like this is that we now closely review any legal document we sign, regardless of any claims that it is "just a standard agreement."
Mr. Davad, if you see this, please feel free to contact me directly, I would absolutely love to bring this to a personal close.
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