Complaint Review: Industry Model And Talent Agency

I was approached by a young lady at the Wayne mall one day that I was shopping with my 5 year old and told me that my daughter was beautiful and proceeded to play with her. She asked me if I was interested in having my daughter audition at a casting call that her business was doing. She also asked my daughter if she would like to come out on TV.

Of course my daughter wanted, so I told the lady that I would like it but being the fact that one time another agency scammed me I was very cautious with this. She informed me that her agency does not charge anything and that they just get the klids exposed to big names and that the next day they were going to have a cast call and I should just bring my daughter.

I filled out a small card she gave me and proceeded my way. The next day I received over 5 calls from 5 different people trying to set up an appintment to meet with them. I became a bit exited and mentioned to the person that I also had 4 more children and if I could also bring them to teh casting. They automatically asked me for their names and asked me to please dress them all up nicely.

The next day my children became very happy when they saw how beautiful they looked, (I went and bought them nice outfits) and we went to our meeting. At arrival we were asked to come into an office to meet a director and teh director continued to compliment my children. She kept telling them how beautiful they were and how did they feel about coming out on tv. They became even more involved when they saw pictures of famous people and then I interrupted and asked where was the casting going to takeplace.

The lady sitting with us informed me that she was the director and that she was very interested in my kids especially my oldest and themiddle child which actually made me think they must be legit.

Anyway she told me that she needed to set up a photo shoot immediately for my kids and showed me the packages available and asked me to pick the biggest ones for my 2 girls. I picked out 2 large packages and 2 small ones and then was told the price. I was shocked and advised the woman that this was too much and I could not make any decisions about such an expense without my kids father's consent. She asked me to call him, but he was not available so I told her I would call her after discussing this with my husband.

Anyway she told me that being the fact that the waiting list for pictures was long she was going to do me a favor and get me an appointment fro the end of the week and all I needed to do was give her a credit card and that way she could hold my position after speaking to the father and would not be charged until I authorized it.

For some reason I believed her, but instead I gave her a credit card that did not belong to me, just to make sure she could not charge it, I gave her a card with my brother's name on it that I had of my brother's. I then had to sign a paper regarding the photo shoot and had to initial on every date that she set me up for. After getting home and speaking to my husband, he was against the whole idea and said it was too much, he also did a search on the company and could not believe the amount of complaints that they had with the better Business bureau. so I immediately became nervous and could not sleep that night waiting to call them the next morning.

I called as soon as I knew they were opened and asked to cancel the photo shoot and needed to make sure that I speak to the lady that interviewed me. The receptionist told me that tshe was busy and would call me back in a bit. I waited for the call and while I waited checked on the account that I had provided the agency with and to my surprise the account was charged $2,500.

At this point I became furious and called them again and no one would pick up the phone. I called about 7 times and then became even more nervous. I asked a friend tolet me borrow his cell phone and I called from his phone and someone picked up. I informed the receptionist that I did not appreciate teh lies and told her I was on my way.

I flew to this office which is about an hour away from my home and expressed my concern where I was met with ms Stacey James whom invited me into her office. She advised me that she was the manager and to tell her what happened I told her the story and she made it seem like she was going to give me my money back when she asked me to see the papers I had with me. I handed her the papers and she left the office and returned with copies which she handed me.

I questioned this becasue I did not see a check and when she sat down she told me that she needed to speak to her bosses and would give me a response by the next day. She then informed me that I had signed a no refund contract and that I could not go back.

I told her that I never signed a contract that would say NO REFUND, but she assured me that she would help me becasue I had 5 children. I trusted her just to get a call to tell me that they would offer me a better deal but to give the kids the opportunity, I told her i was not interested and that I do not need to pay for nothing becasue I do not want anything and they have done nothing for me. She ignored me and I advised the bank with my brother about the situation and the bank credited my account.

i thought this ordeal was over but to my surprise a few weeks later the money came right back out of the account. I realized this when the bank became negative. I again went to the bank with my brother and they informed us that the agency had provided them with a contract signed by my brother.

I could not believe that they would go this far and falsify a signature, but yet again they changed the contract to state that I signed a no refund contract. I do not know what else to do but take this to small claims but I do not know how much power these people have becasue to do what they did takes guts and they got away with it.

I urge anyone that can help me get my money back to please help me or if anyone wants to file a class law suit, let do it so that more innocent people are not hurt. I will still fight this until I get my money back becasue being a mother of 5, I cannot lose 2500 dollars

Mother of 5
Denville, New Jersey
U.S.A.