You may not know either of us and are wondering why a full time wedding photographer, like myself, has felt my only option was to turn over my own blog to telling the story of Carlo Saleminetti & Claire Potter’s hate campaign against me.
With permission, I have included many screen shots and references to other victims of Carlo & Claire, who operate the following businesses in North West England:
Squashed Apple Limited http://www.squashedapple.co.uk (now closed)
Bella Grace Photography https://www.bellagraceimages.co.uk/
Firstly, I am not alone. I am grateful for the help & support of many other people who are or have been Carlo’s previous victims. Many thanks to Carlo’s clients who have come forward, his former family members and other wedding traders who have been targeted. Many are too scared to do what I am doing.
I believe that bullies are like vampires: they die when exposed to the light. Carlo has lived in the shadows, reviewing me and making highly offensive, defamatory posts while posing as my own unhappy clients.
In summer 2020 I gave Carlo & Claire 48 hours to remove all false reviews. They responded by adding more of them. Eventually, I began to respond to each review in the comments, naming Carlo & Claire as the source and adding links to their business websites. Then on 11th June 2021 Carlo made a 15 minute phone call to me to try and intimidate me into removing my responses. My husband overheard the call and then Carlo started targeting his business too and lying about him online.
Please read this post if you are a police officer who has been asked to investigate this blog post
My story is wrapped up in that of Toyah, a VERY unhappy client of Carlo & Claire’s. Her wedding on 25th May 2019 was booked for 3 staff members: 2 photographers (Carlo & a 2nd shooter) and a videographer/ drone pilot (Claire Potter/Carlo). Toyah had paid in full £2200 prior to the wedding. However, Carlo had a booking for a wedding in the Dominican Republic on 19th May 2019, a few days before Toyah’s wedding. He had assured her he’d be back in plenty of time but he decided to extend his time there to enjoy a holiday with Claire Potter, who was his new girlfriend at the time. Carlo & Claire had both been booked under the Squashed Apple brand to shoot Toyah’s wedding, along with an un-named second shooter. (A second shooter is a often a less experienced wedding photographer who assists the primary photographer. They will get shots from additional angles. Often booked on hourly/ date rates.)
Carlo pretended there had been flight delays affecting his return to the UK instead of telling Toyah and other affected clients the truth.
All together, the wedding scammers team were contacted by five different couples who claimed they had been ditched by Carlo for his holiday and suffered losses as a result. Carlo claimed these allegations were untrue and made up by jealous competitors… but then I met one of the affected clients when she attended a wedding I photographed later on in 2019.
As Carlo & Claire were now on holiday, Toyah was left without most of the team who were supposed to photograph & video her wedding. This was only revealed to her the day before her wedding, though she expected Carlo & Claire to replace themselves and send 3 staff members. On the day, replacement staff were not sent, though a second shooter called Steve attended on his own. Steve did his very best. He had only been booked that morning and offered £150 day rate by Carlo to photograph the wedding as a second shooter. But on arrival he was left to try and do all the work himself which simply wasn’t possible. He took the photos he could manage and sent them to Carlo & Claire for editing.
In the end, Toyah was left with 3 main problems:
1 complete lack of her wedding video
2 poorer quality photos than expected as Steve was not an experienced primary wedding photographer
3 reduced coverage from only having one photographer instead of two
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This is where things get complicated! Victoria Stockton is one of Carlo’s own profiles, used to pose as a happy client in wedding groups and recommend Squashed Apple. He used Victoria to reach out to his victims who he spotted were contemplating suing him in small claims court. Many of the posts about Carlo & Claire could be seen publicly on Facebook so it was easy for him to find the brides, after all, they had already complained so he just needed to watch them online.
Here, he poses as a bride, Victoria, who has ALREADY sued Squashed Apple and lost. The messages are a convenient way of threatening the clients about what would happen to them if they took Carlo to court. A similar set of messages was submitted by two different brides and we had reports of Victoria reaching out to “warn” other clients too. In the UK witness intimidation is an offence.
Carlo (as Victoria) claims that:
1 The client was forced to have mediation
2 The courts were on Carlo’s side, it was a joke
3 The client found they risked being sued for libel & defamation
4 Their solicitor advised them to remove negative reviews as it could lead to them losing their home
5 The client had their car vandalised
6 The client had their house window smashed
7 The expert report provided to the court did not help the bride’s claim
Note Victoria/ Carlo’s final message below… he explains why he had spent months adding false reviews about my business, Ollievision Photography, to different online review sites. He was doing it in advance of Toyah’s court claim to try and undermine my suitability as an expert witness. I assume that Carlo knew I had worked on other cases over the years as an expert witness. However, I have never been an expert witness in a claim against Carlo. It is an offence in the UK to intimidate a witness in a court claim.
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On 2nd October 2020, Toyah’s court claim was finally heard in court. Carlo made this post on his profile, lying about the outcome of the claim. Toyah was awarded £1500 by the court, not £150. On the phone call to me of 11th June, Carlo claimed he also sent me hate mail via inbox but I had blocked him as soon as I saw this post on his profile. Note that Carlo misrepresents the reason for the court claim, stating that Toyah complained because he hadn’t shot the wedding himself. He failed to attend and failed to send a replacement!
(Photo copyright Carlo Saleminetti, editorial use.)
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On 11th June 2021 Carlo phoned me to intimidate me. He demanded I remove my responses to his false reviews. I refused to do this as he can remove my responses by simply removing his own lies. Since then, Carlo’s made more false reviews and started targeting my husband and my husband’s company. We are both self employed.
The same day Carlo phoned me I was contacted by Loretta, his brave ex-wife. She had given me a Google review in March 2021 confirming that the fake reviews were from Carlo & Claire, especially the one in her daughter’s name. Carlo had bullied her into taking down the review, which she had finally done on 11th June. Then he phoned me.
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Here’s Carlo in late June 2021, showing followers on the “wedding scammers don’t let them win page” one of his false reviews for my company on Trust Pilot
So there you have it – a crazy story but one that needs to be told. Feel free to share these blog posts. Carlo says he’ll “come and sort this out face to face” so who knows what he’s planning next!
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