My Unfortunate Experience with a Certain Georgia Business
In late May of 2026, I looked for a company to take my VHS cassettes and to place them on DVD. In part, to make certain that the memories do not disappear forever, and in part because I wanted a small part of them to be played at my funeral, as a memory of my career as a Science teacher.
I had perhaps 12 VHS cassettes and looked for a company that could complete my request. Fortunately, one was near my house. I called and he answered the second time I called after wanting to speak with someone in person. He gave me an address and I drove over the next day to drop off the VHS cassettes.
He took them and said I was 8th in line, so the request would take about two weeks. I said fine and drove back, writing down the dates June 4th or 11th, the latter day being the end of the two weeks.
Two weeks later, I tried contacting this person by leaving a voice mail message and leaving him a message on email with no response. When I drove by this man’s house, he was out getting the mail. I said hello sir, is the project finished up yet? He replied that it was not, and that he and his family had been on vacation for a week. He also told me that I was 8th in line, which caused me to pause in consideration.
If I was still 8th in line, that meant the week he was not gone on vacation, he had made no progress at all towards getting my VHS tapes transferred. He asked for two more weeks. I said fine.
I called again 13 days afterwards, and once more, there was no returned call and no response. At this time, I decided to try to find a different business who could handle this job. It was and is important to me, as I suspected there were pictures of my dearly departed doggies, whom I still miss terribly.
I finally called him up once more to tell him that I just wanted to come get the tapes back. At this, he finally returned a call and after some back and forth, he finally said “Just come on Friday at 11 am and get your tapes.” I said fine. So not only would he not be able to deliver on his stated completion date twice, but he also made me wait 3 more days just to pick up my VHS tapes.
He appeared at his door after ringing twice and knocking, and said the project was not done yet. I told him, “You told me to come get my VHS tapes on Friday so I was not expecting for you to do any more work on it.”
He made me wait in the hot sun for 10-15 minutes outside his door step this morning. Then he finally came out with my tapes in the original bag I had brought them. He appeared quite angry. “I told him, I am a Christian man, and I do not want any bad blood between us.”
He responded, “Oh, there is.”
I told him, “I don’t care to be lied to, twice, about completion dates.”
He replied, “Evidently, you didn’t read the fine print of the contract you signed.”
Well, I could not argue with that. I left that morning with my VHS tapes. He was still glaring angrily at me in his doorway, a little black cloud above his head.
I deeply regret having anything whatsoever to do with this business and this man. He has many awards. They mean little to me, just ashes from the world. He could have tried to see things from my point of view. He did not.
He told me he had called his business friends who worked in the VHS conversion business (to evidently try to hurt me.) He held up a little thumb drive and told me I would never have it. Not nice.
It has been said, what comes around goes around. I don’t want to hurt him or his business, thus the anonymity of this column. I wish he would have treated me more professionally, however, instead of refusing to return an email and multiple phone calls, and multiple broken promises of completed work.
It is written, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That is what I am going to try to do.
