A US wedding videographer has publicly ridiculed a man who lost his fiancee in a tragic car accident after the groom-to-be asked for his deposit back.
Colorado couple Justin Montney and Alexis-Athena Wyatt were set to be married this month, but tragedy struck back in February when 22-year-old Wyatt was tragically killed in a car accident.
Montney has been forced to go about cancelling wedding arrangements, including a wedding videographer the couple had already paid an US$1800 ($2900) fee for.
But videography company Copper Stallion Media has refused to refund the fee, telling Montney he signed a legally binding contract and non-refundable deposits are "the industry standard".
Montney says the company told him it'd extend the service to his next wedding.
"It was a very insensitive thing to tell me," he told local news company WSAV.
Montney, his friends and family left subsequent bad reviews of the company on popular wedding-vendor site The Knot, in a series of posts which Copper Stallion Media is now calling "a smear campaign".
When local radio station KRDO reached out to the videography company to get their side of the story, the company refused to respond. Instead, Copper Stallion Media shared the story on their Facebook page, mocking the 24-year-old for talking to the news.
"We hope you sob and cry all day for what would have been your wedding day," the post read, according to screenshots.
"Sorry, not sorry."
The company then took it a step further, reportedly creating a company under the domain name 'Justin Montney' to build their case against the grieving groom.
While the site has now been removed, Buzzfeed News reports they used a heavily photoshopped photo of Montney and wrote: "In the news story he admits that the contract was non-refundable but says we should give the money back due to the circumstance."
"We will NEVER refund Justin Montney even with the online threats and harassment... If we knew he was going to shake us down, we would have charged a higher deposit.
"Life is a b**ch, Justin."
That site has now been removed, and Copper Stallion Media has not responded to any requests for comment from media.
A GoFundMe has been set up in Wyatt's name to help her parents and Montney pay for expenses, which has raised over US$15,000 at the time of publication.
