When a Good Deal Becomes the Preservation Project of a Lifetime

ScanMyPhotos customer Deborah Harman wasn’t actively seeking a photo scanning company—but she found one by way of an amazing deal she couldn’t pass up.

When Deborah found out about ScanMyPhotos, and the current coupon we were offering at the time, her first thought was, “Oh, that’s a really good idea, I should do that!” So, she went ahead and placed an order to scan 2,000 photos. She assumed that would be more than enough to digitize the 25+ photo albums she had in her possession. As it turns out, her estimate was off—by about 5,000 pictures.

“I realized very quickly that scanning 2,000 wasn’t even going to make a dent. I started at the end of December 2013 and bought the last set of photo scanning boxes in June of 2015. Over a year and half, and between other projects, I went through all my photo albums and got the photos cleaned out, bundled, and then scanned.”

After the albums where done, Deborah hit a snag—in the form of scrapbooks.

“As I went through my pictures, I discovered that I went through a scrapbooking phase. Unfortunately, I had taken my original pictures, and cut and glued them—all of my honeymoon pictures and a year-and-a-half worth of other pictures were scrapbooked. However, I did have the huge box filled with the negatives for each of the prints so I needed to back those up. I sent the negatives to ScanMyPhotos and they scanned the whole thing—in order. Even when the negatives were turned around, they were able to figure out which direction they needed to go in—they came back perfect.

The best part was when my six-year-old granddaughter saw box of negatives and was like ‘Grandma Deb, what is this?’ and while she was looking at me and all I could think was, ‘Wow—this is wild!’”

With all of her personal photos digitized—and after her granddaughter got a brief lesson on what a negative was—Deborah has more ScanMyPhotos projects on the horizon.

“My mother-in-law passed away last year so I took all her pictures, organized them into categories and sent them to ScanMyPhotos. She was born in 1925 and some of the photos in her collection were even older. Now everyone in the family will have an electronic copy of all of these vintage photos, and we’ll divide up the hard copies.

Because the pictures I sent in were so old and had odd sizing, I reached out to live chat and gave them some background about the situation. Shortly after, I received an email from ScanMyPhotos’ owner sending his condolences about mother-in-law. He assured me that they were there to help with whatever I needed. It was just another example of how much ScanMyPhotos understands their customers and exceeds expectations.

It’s scary to mail in your first box of photos and say ‘I hope they come back.’ ScanMyPhotos makes sure they send you emails throughout the entire process, telling you that your box has arrived, when the scan was started, when they’re done, and when they’re shipping the box back. It’s an amazing customer experience—and for someone who worries it’s really great.”

Not only did Deborah enjoy the experience and process, but she definitely loves the peace of mind the project has given her.

“In the event of a disaster, I not only have copies at house, but I have online backups in case of a disaster. You hear all the time about people who have fires or flood and all family pics are gone. Now, I don’t have to worry about that.”