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STALKER ALERT
I recently put a note on Bark to get some quotes for photographers for my wedding this year. This was purely speculative as we were looking for a photographer to really just take pictures of our ceremony and not the rest of the day.
Fairly soon, I was contacted by Mark Westwood. Firstly, by email with a quote that sounded ok ( a little too okay but worth considering). I was Concentrating on everything else, booking a venue, booking registry office and getting initial list of guests together so photographers were low on my list to sort out. I started to get calls from Mark. Mainly during my working hours so I didn’t pick up. The calls became relentless. In total Mark called me nine times in eight days ( some days multiple times). I finally blocked his number however this didn’t stop him going to my voicemail. Please note at this point I’m still working out what I actually want on the wedding day. I felt like I was being stalked. I decided to respond to his initial email saying that we had found a family member who had previously done wedding photography and we were going to ask them. Honestly, I was using bark to get initial ideas of what this might cost with no commitment. Had I known I would be stalked by this person. I would never have put my details in.

Today I received this response from Mark Westwood:

Hello Richard, Thank you for your email regarding your wedding day photography, can I ask why you would contact BARK for wedding photographers when you have someone to do it for nothing, unfortunately we are charged to contact you from BARK, this happens quite a lot where people contact BARK and then they find someone who can do it for free.

This has put me off ever using bark again, and I certainly wouldn’t consider using Mark Westwood as a photographer. If anything I’d be taking out a restraining order against him. Please beware. @Mark Westwood you really need to work on your business model.

I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Mark Westwood though a website called 'Bark' which is a site used to find 'professionals' (as he described himself) where you describe your job you need and potential people provide you with a quote... in this case I needed my flat photographed for an airbnb advertisement so I wanted to get a few quotes to see the potential cost of thus if I decided to go down the route of hiring someone.

So Mark called me and he gave me a quote and I explained to him clearly that my flat wasn't even furnished yet and that at this point I was only after a quote as I told him precisely my plan was to first let a friend of mine (when the flat was ready) to come over with his expensive professional cannon camera to take the pictures to see how they turn out. Obviously if they were great then I would use them and save on the cost of hiring someone.

After initially speaking with mark, he emailed though a link to his website (which to be honest, the quality of thus is almost as bad his attitude) and I responded with "I will be in touch if the plans I have in place don’t go ahead". Pretty clear from my end.

2 days later he calls me again to see how im getting on... I said its no where near furnished yet the same state as two days ago and I repeated that I would be in touch if his assistance was required.

At this point I get that he's keen for the job and doesn't want to miss out which is fair enough but on the other hand he should listen to what I say. Another few days goes by and he calls me again. This is where I picked up on the first red flag of his attitude problem when I repeated the whole situation to him again as nothing had changed and he told me how I should go about getting photos for my flat done. I was thinking to myself... 'is this man who wants work really telling me I shouldn't be getting quotes for a job just incase my friend doesn't come though for me'??

Anyway, a week or so goes by and he rings me AGAIN. This time his true colours really shone through. I explained the flat isn't even ready yet to be photographed and he replied with 'this is not how you treat professionals' and 'I should've got the pictures done by my friend with his 'iPhone' first before getting quotes'. After this he quickly just hung up on me so I sent him a text message basically saying his attitude and etiquette stinks and that I was very clear from the start on my position.

In short he responded asking why I didn't use my friend with the expensive camera from day one (this was always the plan as I stated many times when the flat was ready) and that he has 2 houses in London and 1 in Jersey!

That response just completely summed that mans persona and professionalism in a short sentence and led me to write thus review to warn others of this toxic individual.