Why Warn People About Legacy Box?

Let’s Count The Problems

Lying About Costs – The website always has a 50-70% sale going. No other company lists an insanely high price, then says it’s actually 50-70% off right now. People are not that stupid. But the hidden costs are either not listed at all, or hidden in small print away from where you might look. $7 tape conversions are actually $20 or more when you factor in all the actual costs. Other competitors are usually honest with people and list the actual costs upfront, so  expectations are set. Legacy Box has mastered the art of bait-and-switch.

8-12 Week Turnaround Time – Yes I said WEEKS, not days. The industry standard is 1-2 week turnaround time. Why these people take 2-3 months is beyond me. What the hell are they doing at work?

Box purchase – People … you are buying a box. Legacy Box is praying that you never return that box to them, because then they keep all your money. Prepaid boxes are a SCAM. Let me say it again. Prepaid boxes are a SCAM. Real companies don’t take the balance of your payment until the work is completed.

Shitty customer service – Actually zero customer service. They don’t answer the phone. They don’t respond to email. They are a goddamn black hole when it comes to communication. They are down there with Regus in terms of customer dissatisfaction.

Rebranding – There are actually three brand names that this company uses – Legacy Box, Southtree, and Kodak Digitizing. You don’t hear much about the last two because they have burned those brands down to the scorched earth with crappy service over the years. The name Legacy Box sprung out of ashes a few years ago. The comapny already had the employees, the equipment, and the software, all it needed to do was rebrand itself in the hopes that customers would forget about lousy experiences with the previous brand names.

Risk – The company wants you to believe that it’s somehow safer to ship with their prepaid boxes than with any other sturdy box. In the end, you are still relying on UPS or FedEX to deliver safely. It makes no difference that they send you a (very expensive) box that probably won’t hold all your shit anyway.

Losing Your Stuff – Like, literally losing your materials you send in. This happens a lot at this company. It does not happen at other companies in the same industry. You have one set of memories, they simply cannot be lost.

Storage concerns – They are located in the warehouse district in Chattanooga TN. I went there myself and walked around. Not only is the area itself sketchy, but the warehouse isn’t marked at all, even when you walk around the building. While most competitors are located in safe office parks, Legacy Box chose the risk of warehouse fires in questionable parts of town.

Data concerns – While this didn’t happen to me personally, many of the complaints revolve around data that was not stored or backed up. Storing customer data is absolutely the industry standard unless the customer opts out.

Employee Turnover – The turnover at Legacy Box is very high. There isn’t any way to do a good job when half your staff is untrained and uncaring. Which leads to …

Quality Control – It’s impossible to maintain quality when there were never any quality standards set in the first place. Combine that with turnover (lack of training) and prepaid boxes (lack of incentive) and you wind up with shitty quality. They take your money up front and hope they never hear from you again.

So why do I care? Legacy Box put me through a nightmare a couple of years ago, and most of the issues listed on this website happened to me.

No they didn’t lose my stuff, and it wasn’t damaged like a lot of people. But it took nearly five months to convert fewer than 10 tapes, at triple the costs they stated, and zero communication from the company the entire time. I called and called and emailed, and the couple of times I did speak to a real human, it took 30 minutes to get someone on the line each time. They never had any answers, did not know who I was, and had no update for me whatsoever.

While I was waiting all those months worried about my memories, I researched the rest of the industry and spoke to several other companies that do the same thing as Legacy Box. To my surprise, I was able to speak to a knowledgeable person most of the time at all those other companies, and while there were some differences in timing and pricing, it was clear that most of them cared and were trying to do the right thing for their customer base.

In the end, I sent 50 more tapes to one of them (Memory Fortress in the Atlanta area) and they were done in under a week, maybe 10 days if you count shipping time both ways. Both the customer service and the final result were outstanding. This was while I was waiting on Legacy Box to convert my original order.

So since I did extensive research, who would I recommend based on my actual experiences and phone conversations? Looking geographically, I would say DPS Dave in the Pacific Northwest, Memories Renewed and Affordable Scanning Services in the upper midwest, EverPresent in the northeast, Digital Roots Studio in the Southwest, and of course Memory Fortress in the South. But do your homework and actually call these companies before you do business with them. If they are not friendly on the phone with you (or don’t answer at all), that is a huge red flag that you are going down the wrong path.

Clearly, digitizing memories is extremely important for all of us, and companies have to have the utmost care. I look at it like going to the doctor – you want to entrust your health to qualified professionals who care about you personally. I wouldn’t ever think of trusting Legacy Box with anything again, and the worries I felt over those five months are one of the reasons I put this website up.

I would hope that if they don’t go out of business soon, they can at least focus on helping customers solve problems. Because right now it feels like they are a black hole you just dump money into.