Complaint Review: Prodigy Model Management

When I was 16 my mom started sending out my photos to local agencies just to see what would shake out. We were contacted by Marianne Tamposi from Prodigy Model Management, and she was interested in meeting with us. We drove from North Florida all the way to Inverness, Florida to her house....FLAG 1.

At her house we were told that I needed to build a portfolio, so my mom shelled out $500 to Marianne for her husband to photgraph me at their home....FLAG 2

The pictures were nice and definitely did give me a strong portfolio, so we continued on. Marianne had my mother and I sign into an exclusivity contract. Marianne had me working with local photographers to build my book, paying anywhere from $200 to $500 per shoot...FLAG 3

Marianne contacted my mother for a couple of "jobs". I appeared in four different magazines and never received compensation for any of the work. For each shoot my mother and I had to travel and pay all of the costs, along with never getting paid for the magazine. Marianne told me this was normal for a beginner model....FLAG 4

Marianne worked with a booker, David, who would contact my mother with PAYING jobs, and Marianne told me I was not allowed to go to these jobs because she did not approve of them. (Probably because they would have paid me there and she couldn't steal all of it)...FLAG 5

Ultimately I ended up quitting modeling, with some cool pictures to show but that's it. I was later informed by Mother Model Management that they would fly me out to meet with them if I wanted to continue modeling but that did not happen. However they did inform my mother that for each magazine I was in, I should have been paid around $200-$250 per hour spent on the shoots. This information indicates that I should have been paid anywhere from $1000-$1800 per shoot for publication and I was in 4. You do the math...