I once recommended Matts company to a friend who was sponsoring a large indoor sports tournament . He shot the video and , weeks later, I started getting calls from the people who paid him for their DVD’s. Many times I brought this to Matt’s attention, who shrugged it off and assured me that he “ took care of “ everyone. As far as I know based on repeated phone calls and emails,he never delivered. I like Matt personally, and he has a wonderful family. In personal dealings he seems honest and straightforward. I feel he is an honest man at heart. However, he obviously has some issues in the “post production” of his video that need to be resolved before he should take money in advance for services yet to be rendered.

I am a parent who paid for the dvd and STILL have not received it.  The article says they were all delivered to the studio on 12/01 and the studio has not even contacted me to let me know they have them in.  A good friend told me about the news story and I had to go on line to learn that the dance studio is now in possession of the videos.  Why haven’t they contactd all the parents?  This was the fault of both businesses.  The dance studio acted like they had no responsibility to the parents even getting the videos.  The guy never answered his phone or his messages.  Both people were irresponsible and tried to pass the buck!! I’ll find another studio for my daughter to participate in!  The guy was a jerk and the owner of the dance studio was less than interested in making sure the parents were satisfied.  The attitude presented to me was once of indifference.  I’m hoping the studio will get me the dvd I paid for and at least try to make it right.

I too am one of the parents that hired Mr. Cole and he may be a fine man but his business tactics with us were less than professional.

Look it’s plain and simple, regardless if Mr. Cole was starting up a new business, he agreed to a job and failed to produce.  WE HAD TRIED JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING SHORT OF A LAWSUIT, so we opted to contact Jerry prior to filing the suit.  Jerry was just doing his job so leave him out of this.

Yes Mr. Cole subbed it out but he is still ultimately responsible to produce those tapes or give us our money back.
It was obvious that he did not want to talk to us.  All we got was the answering machine when we called.  Then the answering machine stopped answering and it just rang and rang.  One time somebody called from their office and left a message with their office title.  They received a return call within 30 minutes, explain that.

Money; I too am a small business owner and I’ve never received 100% of my fee upfront.  Mr Cole received a very sizable amount prior to the job and I’m sure that was agreed upon by both parties.  Mr. Cole not receiving all his fee upfront is not the issue here.

Mr. Cole wronged us and I feel had no intentions of producing any cds or returning our money until we put his face on the 6 0’clock news. 

Thank you Jerry for solving our problem.

I can’t help but notice that in the story it says that parents paid $35 for their DVD copies and later it says about 80 copies were ordered and $2,000 paid to Colius. If my math is correct then Colius should have been paid $2,800. If I were a parent of one of these dancers I think I would be asking Janice Johnson why Colius wasn’t paid in full. This alone could have been the reason Mr. Cole didn’t expedite the order. If you went to sears and wanted to buy a tv, do you think they would sell it to you if you were $800 short? Who has the $800? Surely Janice Johnson isn’t planning on keeping this money herself. Although she has had over six months to pay Colius. Hey Jerry maybe you need to go to Janice Johnson’s house and stick a camera in her face!

I am the grandmother of one of the young ladies that dances at Creative Movement.  At this past summer’s recital, my granddaughter did a routine dancing with her mother.  In the six years she has been in dance, this is the first, and possibly the only, time this has happened.  And for that reason among others, I especially wanted this year’s DVD.  It’s not the fact that I work 40 hours a week and paid for my own copy with no results.  It’s the fact that the moments with my daugher and granddaugher up on that stage in the limelight may have never been seen again. 

Without this segment being done, who’s to say we would have ever seen the DVD’s at all?  It’s not as though it had only been two weeks.  It had been over six months, and all with no contact on his end.  Although he states that we were all aware of the delay, no calls to get an update from us were answered, and many of us were hung up on when he knew we were calling regarding the status of the DVD’s we paid for.

The previous DVD’s Mr. Cole provided us with were of wonderful quality and that is why the studio wanted to use him again this year. This year he subcontracted our performance out and had someone else film it and therein lies the first problem. The quality is terrible! Upon seeing the bad video quality, a good business owner would have taken it upon himself to contact his client and let them know that there was a problem. Mr. Cole did not do that. Instead, he completely ignored calls from the studio and the parents. If this is the way a business treats its customers then yes, it is a bad business.

I have used Colius studios on numerous productions and have never had a problem. Mr. Cole has always been a pleasure to work with. I hope people will not judge him or his company on this isolated incident. It says in the story that Creative Movement has used Colius Studios on previous recitals. If Mr. Cole runs such a BAD business then why did Creative Movement continue to use the company?

Isnt it funny that it is stated by concerned4u that the phone number was changed but for some reason Mr Cole got all the messages when someone was calling him asking him to do work for them.  Wow it is amazing what lies people will tell.  It also is so funny that it didnt matter how many times the parents called we couldnt get any results.  But as soon as he know that he was going to be on TV for his BAD business the DVD’s were finished.  It is all pretty ironic!!!!!

If Mr Cole wanted all the facts told then he shouldnt have run away from the camera!!!!!!

Sounds to me that Mr Cole got paid and didnt care about finishing the product until his reputation was going to be ruined!!!!!!!!

What amazes me is the lack of integrity of this article.The facts are NOT all told.I think it is only fair to tell BOTH sides of the entire story.Where might the information be that Ms. Johnson was actually informed that Mr.Cole WAS actually starting a new business route and would be too busy to shoot her recital?Yet, she was so pleased with his work that she WANTED him to do this even though it was known that it might take months to have the project completed AND was told that someone else might have to shoot the show. Where is the information that states that the reason why the phone calls were not returned was because there was a new number? Maybe not such a responsible business move.HOWEVER, how dare you deface someone’s reputation based on a situation that YOU knew had been resolved before airing this piece, but insisted that this trash be broadcast because you couldn’t find anything to fill your ridiculous airtime.Know your facts.Mr. Cole is a talented, honest man. How dare you?

I am one of the parents who waited over 6 months to get my DVD and I can tell you that we tried every thing other than filing a lawsuit against this guy. After watching the DVD tonight I’m actually considering talking to other parents and filing a suit against him in small claims court anyway because of the quality of the DVD. It looks as if it was shot with an old VHS camcorder and it’s so blurry that you can’t even tell who the kids are or what color the costumes are half the time. The only way I was able to pick my kid out in her first dance was because I knew that she was the tall, skinny one. Her face was completely distorted. Also, there are many points in the video where he was obviously not paying attention to the performance he was supposed to be filming because the only thing on the screen is empty stage. Our kids worked hard all year to perfect their dances and you can’t even see them. To add insult to injury, the awards ceremony at the end of the recital was cut off.

I think it is very, very tasteless of Gerry Brown and channel 13 to exploit Matt Cole the way you did.  Yes, Matt was wrong in not returning the probably many phone calls, but there are other ways to handle these situations and sneaking up on someone with a camera crew to intentionally catch them off-guard is wrong.
You did a good job in tarnishing his reputation. I’m sure Matt is a good honest person and NOT A CROOK. Shame on you, Gerry Brown.