Read the Fine Print: What Mail-In Digitizing Companies Actually Promise (In Their Own Words)
What Legacybox and iMemories' own terms say about risk, liability, and quality, quoted verbatim with sources.
Contents
- Legacybox’s terms state that risk of loss stays with you while your tapes are in carrier transit, in both directions.
- iMemories’ terms cap the company’s maximum liability at the fees you paid in the past 12 months or $100, whichever is less.
- Legacybox, Southtree, and Kodak Digitizing are all one company: AMB Media, LLC of Chattanooga, Tennessee, per their own terms and their shared BBB profile.
- Legacybox’s help center states tape transfers are delivered at 480p, which it calls half the resolution of HD, and that HD output is not available.
- When comparing services, ask whether your original media will leave the building where you dropped it off.
When you are looking into digitizing services that hold your precious memories of your family, you see a lot of websites that proclaim to store your memories in a safe environment. They describe themselves in their marketing as being a very family orientated company. They portray themselves as being very trustworthy, caring and safe to store all of your memories. However, this is compared to how their Terms and Conditions are set out on their website. Often these are two complete opposite scenarios. In this article, we shall be reviewing the Terms and Conditions of several of the more popular digitizing services. The terms will be shown in exact quotes and where applicable, the reader will be directed to the relevant Terms and Conditions page on the company’s website. The quotes were taken from the websites of the companies on 3rd August 2016. Terms and conditions can change so please make sure to check the current Terms and Conditions before sending off any of your precious memories in the form of items to be digitized.
Both Legacybox and iMemories publish risk-of-loss terms that place shipping liability on the customer.
"We tell families to read the terms before they ship, because the terms are where you find out who carries the risk. At Forever Studios, your originals never leave our building, and you get them back from the same hands that took them. No shipping trucks, no sorting facilities, no queue two thousand miles away." Zachary G., Preservation Specialist, Forever Studios
What does Legacybox's fine print say about liability and risk?
At Legacybox, we have outlined in our Services Terms and Conditions who is responsible for your items once we have received them at our facility. The responsibility for loss passes to Legacybox when your materials arrive at their offices, and the risk passes back to you when they deliver your materials to the shipping carriergitized Materials to the shipping carrier. BY SHIPPING ANY MEDIA TO LEGACYBOX, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT LEGACYBOX IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LATE, LOST, DAMAGED OR MISDIRECTED MAIL.
Both Legacybox and iMemories publish risk-of-loss terms that place shipping liability on the customer.
In capital letters, Legacybox's terms add: BY SHIPPING ANY MEDIA TO LEGACYBOX, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT LEGACYBOX IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LATE, LOST, DAMAGED OR MISDIRECTED MAIL. Then comes the paragraph every customer should read twice: YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS INHERENT RISK IN SUBMITTING YOUR MATERIALS TO LEGACYBOX, AND YOU RECOGNIZE THAT YOU MAY NOT RECEIVE YOUR MATERIALS BACK IN THE SAME CONDITION THAT THEY WERE SENT TO US.YBOX, i.e. that there is some risk to the physical items that they send to the company.
First of all, who decides when something goes wrong in the first place? If you submit a claim for a lost or damaged item(s), you agree to be bound by Legacybox’s review and determination of such claim. Since the items were stored by Legacybox, their staff are likely to blame themselves for what went wrong with your items. Yes, they use barcode tracking for items and treat each of your things with the care and handling that they would provide to their own. But they handle lots of things, and they handle them all in a commercially reasonable manner. Fair enough. That’s what you’re agreeing to if they do lose something.
Mail-in services use barcode tracking to manage customer materials through multi-state workflows.
How much liability does iMemories accept under its terms?
Forever Studios · Boca Raton, FL
VHS Tape Transfer
We clean, repair, and digitize VHS and camcorder tapes, including flood-recovery cases.
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Mail-in services use barcode tracking to manage customer materials through multi-state workflows.
Understanding service terms and liability limits helps protect irreplaceable media during the digitization process.
iMemories’ Terms and Conditions as of January 31, 2025 place the risk of shipping on the customer for both import and export. The Terms and Conditions state that for the import of the customer’s materials (“Your Content” or “other materials” herein referred to as “the iMemories’ materials”): Shipping Risk is Customer’s in both the import and export scenarios. For the import of iMemories’ materials, iMemories is not responsible for “Your Content” or “other materials” while in transit through or in possession of the United States Postal Services, United Parcel Service (UPS) or any other carrier and the risk of loss is on the customer until the iMemories’ materials are delivered to customer. For export of iMemories’ materials to customer, the risk of loss and title for the materials sent by iMemories to customer is on customer upon delivery of the iMemories’ materials to its carrier.
Are Legacybox, Southtree, and Kodak Digitizing the same company?
All three brands are one company: AMB Media, LLC of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Terms of Legacybox begin with “AMB Media, LLC dba Legacybox”. The BBB lists Legacybox, Kodak Digitizing, and AMB Media, LLC (Southtree) – all at Market Street address. A customer who is receiving quotes from the three ways of getting quotes to the same warehouse – Legacybox, Kodak Digitizing, and quotes from Southtree by AMB Media, LLC – believes he is receiving quotes from three separate companies and he can then compare prices he received from them.
Better Business Bureau profiles show accreditation ratings alongside customer review scores; read both.
Mail-in digitization services rely on centralized processing facilities that handle materials from multiple brand names under shared operations.
Better Business Bureau profiles show accreditation ratings alongside customer review scores; read both.
What video quality do mail-in services deliver?
The specifications for what you will receive for a transfer are laid out in detail on the Legacybox help center. First, it states that each transfer will be 480p at about 24-29 frames per second. To give you an idea of what this really means, it is half of the resolution of HD and below the refresh rate of many of the modern TVs on the market today. Because of this, the digital files that Legacybox creates are comparable in quality to that of many standard VHS tapes which transfer in 480p as well. While we are not able to create HD digital files and are not able to improve the quality of the films or photos in any way, it is helpful to give families an idea of what to expect prior to being charged for a transfer. Transfers are a 1 time event for families and therefore it is best to know the very upper limits of what you will receive.
What do Better Business Bureau profiles show for these companies?
Forever Studios · Boca Raton, FL
VHS Tape Transfer
We clean, repair, and digitize VHS and camcorder tapes, including flood-recovery cases.
GET STARTED →Read BBB listings carefully, because two different numbers live on the same page. The Southtree/Legacybox/Kodak profile carries an A+ letter grade from the BBB itself, and the company is accredited. The customers tell a different story on that same profile: an average review score of 1.05 out of 5 stars as of January 2025. iMemories shows a C- BBB rating and is not accredited. This is very different from iMemories which shows a C- rating and is NOT accredited at BBB. However, it is worth your time to read for yourself and see the reviews and experience of the customer as well as the company’s response.
How does a local digitizing studio differ in risk from mail-in services?
Some digitizing studios work locally: you drop off your tapes at a neighborhood storefront and pick them up when finished. The critical question to ask is what happens after you hand them over. Does the media leave that building? Is it shipped to a central warehouse in another state, or does it stay on-site? Is it ever sent to a lab or is it put in a carrier’s truck and you are then responsible for the return of the media?
FOREVER STUDIOS – Located in the heart of Boca Raton, Florida. FOREVER STUDIOS is a Photo, Video, Film and Audio Digitization Preservation Studio. FOREVER STUDIOS is a digitization studio. We digitize your original media in our studio and then you take your digitized media with you when you leave our studio. No shipping, no sorting at a warehouse, no waiting in a company’s queue on the other side of the country. Videos: $12 per tape. Photo Scanning: $0.50 per print (scanned at 600 DPI) – loose photos. All your Originals returned too. Work with the staff who actually did your work. OVER 3,600 VERIFIED CUSTOMER REVIEWS with a Google and Reviews.io Average of 4.9 Stars or Higher at Forever Studios.
What should you check in a service's terms before shipping your tapes?
When choosing a provider, go through the following checks: 1) Terms and conditions, read the risk of loss section while media is traveling. 2) Liability cap, what is it, and will it bring you comfort if something goes wrong? 3) Written output specifications (resolutions, frame rates, file types). 4) Where is the work being done? Where is the lab? Just because a provider has a local storefront does not mean the work stays localder lists a website with an address does not mean that is where the work is being done. 5) BBB reviews. Read the most recent 10 reviews for that provider. 20 minutes of your time to read these beats a year of regret.
★★★★★
"I had some old 1960 Kodak slides that I wanted digitized. After partially filling out online forms for several national digitzing services, I found that the price quoted at the start of the application form wound up being twice as much when it was time to provide my payment information. I strongly dislike bait and switch tactics, not only for its unethical nature, but that it wasted my valuable time. In my further search, I came across this "mom & pop" online digitizing service out of Oralndo, Florida. The online form was easy, straight forward, had many service options, and stuck to the "upfront" pricing. They even had several options for how to submit my slides. I chose to send them via regular US mail. They texted me they received them a couple days later and texted me again that I should have the digitized pen drive in a couple days more right on Q (total turn-around time 6 days not including the weekend)!!! I received the product securely packaged with a high qulity pen drive I inserted into my USB port. Voila. Nice clear digital pictures of some 1960's memories. WELL DONE. I had one picture that had a lot of visual noice from dust and dirt most, but I did not purchase the upgraded service offered to clean the slides, becasue I am proficent with photo editing software and figured I would prefer to take care of this myself for only 20 slides. If you have huge numbers of slides or are not skilled at photo editing, you might want to pay the little extra for this service. I am very pleased with the company's product, customer service, and straight forward business model. I WILL contact them again if I ever find that batch of old missing slides I know I have somewhere in my house -- Trish"
Trish, verified customer review
Frequently asked questions
Does Forever Studios ship my originals anywhere?+
No. Your originals stay in our Boca Raton facility from the time we receive them until you pick them up. All original materials are returned to you. Typical turnaround is 2 to 3 weeks.
What happens if a mail-in service damages my tapes?+
You are limited to the remedy outlined in the contract terms and conditions. In Legacybox's terms, consumers agree to be bound by Legacybox's review and determination regarding any loss claims. For iMemories, total liability is capped at the fees paid in the prior 12 months or $100, whichever is less. These caps apply no matter what was lost.
Is it safe to mail VHS tapes to a digitizing service?+
Both Legacybox and iMemories' terms place shipping risk on the customer in both directions. If a box is lost or damaged during carrier transit, the customer bears responsibility, not the company. If your tapes are irreplaceable, consider a service that does not require shipping.
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