Ripoff artists and scams

Whenever the unemployment rate rises the scam artists come out of the woodwork to prey on those people that are unemployed. A few years back, around 2002, there was a scam involving talent scouts. What would happen is that a "talent scout" from an agency would approach people and remark "you have the look we are looking for", "have you ever thought about modeling or acting?". The scout would then give them their card and tell them to show up for the next casting call. The agency would hold the "casting call" and let them know all about how famous the agency was and the founder was a big name supermodel. They let the "future models and actors" know that they had an immense data base filled with portfolios of models. They let everyone know that film producers, top name modeling agency's and advertising companies had access to that data base. In order to join that group and have their photos and portfolios available they just had to pay a membership fee. The fee was in the $500+ range. It smacked of ripoff as soon as you heard the money amount.

But what does this have to do with unemployment? The "agency" also uses the same ploy to get their talent scouts. How do I know? I was suckered in as one. They pull the same "song and dance act" with their talent scouts. They don't pay them, the scouts work on commission only. For every person they get to sign up they get XX amount of dollars. When you are desperate for work you will do almost anything. I was with them for 3 weeks, which was 1 week longer than most of them. We were recruited in droves. There were always about 30 people that signed up to be a talent scout each week. Some people were commuting 50+ miles in to the agency.

After I quit the scam got on the news and the place got shut down. That was only one place out of thousands all over the country. It was a franchise.

Move up to last week when I got an email. Here is the photo of what they sent.

It is the same scam except this time they cut out the talent scout. They use email instead. When you click on the ad in the email it takes you to a site called Hollywood profiles and it also mentions a very nice membership fee. Be warned and stay away!