Walgreens Film Users Beware! Your Negatives will be Destroyed If....

[hendriphile]

Went to my neighborhood Walgreens to pick up a roll of developed film, and when I opened the package I found nothing besides the prints but a disk with some questionable quality scans - and no negatives! When I inquired about this, I was told that Walgreens' current policy is now to send all film to a Fuji factory in South Carolina where they are developed and the negatives promptly destroyed. Digital data is then sent to the local Walgreens store where prints are made from the data. By the time you come to the Walgreens store to pick it up, your negatives have already been destroyed and there is no way to retrieve them.

BTW, no one informs the customer of this when handing the film in to Walgreens. There is a poster in the photo department that claims that film development is available but it does not state that the negatives will be destroyed. The person behind the counter claims that when you hand in the film, if you examine very carefully the Fine Print in the paper agreement, it says somewhere that the negatives will be destroyed. But who reads these microscopic contracts when handing in film? So I'm posting this just to let the general film using population know about this egregious activity.

 

[kossi008]

Oof. That hurt!
How can they do this? I'm stunned.

 

[Pioneer]

Not unusual anymore. Walmart and several others are actually sending the film out rather than doing it in the store.

I used to have some of my color film developed at Walmart until this started. No longer.

 

[Gumby]

This has been going on for quite some time. Good warning nonetheless.

 

[Addy101]

Sending out is what most shops here in The Netherlands do - but you always get your negatives. This is stupid and Walgreens doesn't say so on their website.

 

[DCB]

If you can find a "wet" store they will develop it on site with negs and scans.

Sorry for you situation. I was going to use Walmart a while back until I read what they said they did with the negs....not happening.

Peace

 

[SolaresLarrave]

There are two Walgreen's in my area and one advertised that they would not develop film in house any longer. However, the sign about sending film out did warn that they would return the disk or prints or both, but no negs.

Walmart has been doing this for a while. I won't take my E-6 film there any more.

The other Walmart still processes film at the store, but the people who do it are so careless I won't give them any of my business: poorly developed stuff, chopped, not cut negatives, dusty scans... Not for me.

 

[gb hill]

All these places that send film out are doing it. You need to find a place that still does 1 hr processing or send it out to a professional place that will send the negatives back to you like The Darkroom.

 

[nikon_sam]

I almost took in two rolls a few months ago...glad I didn't...gotta find another developer...Thanks for the info.

 

[kossi008]

Well I'm still shocked. In my opinion, there is a *big* difference between just sending out negs and having them destroyed.

Good thing I still have my local store with in-house developing for whatever I can't do myself...

 

[John Bragg]

That is nothing short of criminal. My local Asda (walmart uk) still does in house developing, but they badly damaged the last film I gave them. Poorly trained staff and no regard for the process. Lucky I mostly dev my own b&w.

 

[Keith]

What a ridiculous policy ... I'm stunned! 😱

 

[Solinar]

I agree with Keith. This is an absurd policy. Thank goodness we still have two camera stores in Austin, TX that have an in-house Fuji C-41 processor and one pro-lab.

 

[ray*j*gun]

Walmart has been doing that for years. Ridiculous waste!!!!!

 

[ZuikoAndHisM3]

I like the clickbait title 😉

Luckily Film Shooters still have the option of Boots to do our film processing - though only C41 Process 135 Film. We get our negatives back, too. It must hurt to have them destroyed without your knowledge.

 

[jsrockit]

That's ok... when they did return your negatives, they were usually scratched anyway... 😉

 

[oftheherd]

Went to my neighborhood Walgreens to pick up a roll of developed film, and when I opened the package I found nothing besides the prints but a disk with some questionable quality scans - and no negatives! When I inquired about this, I was told that Walgreens' current policy is now to send all film to a Fuji factory in South Carolina where they are developed and the negatives promptly destroyed. Digital data is then sent to the local Walgreens store where prints are made from the data. By the time you come to the Walgreens store to pick it up, your negatives have already been destroyed and there is no way to retrieve them.

BTW, no one informs the customer of this when handing the film in to Walgreens. There is a poster in the photo department that claims that film development is available but it does not state that the negatives will be destroyed. The person behind the counter claims that when you hand in the film, if you examine very carefully the Fine Print in the paper agreement, it says somewhere that the negatives will be destroyed. But who reads these microscopic contracts when handing in film? So I'm posting this just to let the general film using population know about this egregious activity.

I believe I posted something similar about my local CVS, which I used to be rather fond of for their pricing and processing. Same thing, I had even mentioned the negatives should not be printed, just scanned and sleeved. Funny thing thinking back on it, was that they put it in a Kodak envelope, and it came back in one. I remember commenting at the time that was odd as Kodak hasn't processed film to my knowledge, for some 2 or 3 years.

The next time I have film I don't want to develop myself, I will take/send to Dominion/Ace Camera that I mention from time to time.

But sad really.

 

[willwright]

processing

processing

use precision (see ad at top of forum) flawless work, just takes awhile depending on your postal situation..

 

[mani]

That's ok... when they did return your negatives, they were usually scratched anyway... 😉

I don't understand what sort of pleasure you get from posting this sort of rubbish comment.

Yeah - I'll save you the time of writing "lighten up etc" by doing it myself. But how about you get a real sense of humor first?

 

[willie_901]

Precision Camera & Video in Austin TX provides excellent film development and scanning services via mail. You will get your negatives back. They leave them uncut if requested.

Precision Camera & Video is a long-time RFF sponsor.