When 200 angry brides called

Plus you've been overpaying for chicken

In 18 months as Attorney General of NC, almost no case has filled my inbox like this one.

Press conference with some of the victims in the wedding photography case.

Our office handles big stuff: fentanyl trafficking, monopoly cases (like Ticketmaster), robocalls, price-fixing, FEMA. All told, we’ve got about 10,000 active cases.

But the case I’ve heard the most lately - by far - concerns a local wedding photography company.

Which tells you how badly this company treated people.

I give you, Holly Christina Photography.

Nearly 200 couples are out about $1m. Here’s what happened.

This company sold wedding photo and video packages that cost about $6,000. They used some version of the same sales line over and over: “Better hurry up and book - we’ve only got one spot left!”

But it wasn’t the last spot.

Turns out, they were double- and triple-booking weddings on the same day. Two dates had five weddings booked for one day.

Sometimes, a completely different photographer would show up.

Sometimes, the right photographer would show up, and they’d take pictures - but never hand them over. And then they’d keep the deposit, which was thousands of dollars.

Then in January, the company shut down. No refunds. And they kept taking deposits right until they closed.

When they closed, dozens of couples were less than 90 days out from their wedding, which meant they had to scramble to find a new photographer without the deposit money they already paid.

That’s when our office got an avalanche of complaints. At first, it was about 100, then 150, now we’re over 200.

So we immediately opened an investigation, gathered a lot of strong evidence from the couples who had been scammed, and took this company to court.

The case is still pending, but we just got a good court order that goes into effect immediately.

It does three things.

First, they have to hand over every photo and every video they’re sitting on. All the edited galleries, all the raw footage, everything. Within 30 days.

Second, all their assets are frozen while the court figures out how to make it right with these couples.

Third, they’re not allowed to provide any photography or videography services.

And that’s just a partial ruling while the full case is still pending. We’re going back to court for refunds, civil penalties, and a permanent shutdown.

Why are we making this case a priority?

Because either we live in a state where you can mistreat people, or we don’t. These couples will never get their wedding day back. But they should know we’re making their fight our own and every business that serves the public should know we stand with consumers when they’re mistreated.

Here’s our video explaining the situation in detail, and I’ll keep you posted.

You’ve been Paying Illegal Chicken Prices

We just stopped a hidden system that made you pay more for chicken, pork, and turkey.

It lasted years. Here’s how it worked.

The biggest meat producers in the country, every week, were sending private data on their prices and production volume to a company called Agri Stats.

Then Agri Stats turned around and sent reports back to those same producers showing exactly where each company ranked against its competitors - and where they could raise prices.

And none of that information was public. Grocery stores didn’t have it. Restaurants didn’t have it. Just meat producers.

In other words, companies that were supposed to be competing against each other were using Agri Stats to compare private pricing information to coordinate higher prices.

That’s illegal.

If all these meat producers had sat in a back room and passed around their internal pricing data, everyone would understand the problem. Using an outside company to do it for them doesn’t make it legal.

And the scale was massive. We’re talking roughly 90% of chicken, 90% of turkey, and 80% of pork - so whether you were buying at a grocery store or a restaurant, it was almost all downstream of this scheme to make you pay more.

So we teamed up with five other AGs - from both parties - and USDOJ, and we took them on.

Now we can announce that we have officially brought this practice to an end.

We’re getting a court order that blocks them from doing this and, because we really don’t trust them, there’s going to be a court-ordered monitor looking over their shoulder to make sure they don’t try it again.

There are also class action lawsuits to go after the money that the producers overcharged, so there’s more accountability than just our effort, but our effort means we have cut off this pipeline of secret information that was built to raise prices on you, and that never should have existed in the first place.

Here’s our video which goes into more detail:

We just announced another big case this week, but this email is already long enough so I’ll save it for next week. Wishing you well and have a great week.

Best,

Jeff Jackson

Attorney General, North Carolina

P.S. - Last weekend, I told Avery and Owen I had a surprise for them after my monthly drill with Army National Guard…

Use of military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

… and it was tacos!

Use of military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

Not sure what they were expecting, but we had a great dinner while Marisa was out of town.