- Report: #1208318
Complaint Review: Polina Steier - Palo Alto California
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Author Confirmed
Why?
Polina Steier
637 Homer Ave Palo Alto, 94301 California, USA
Web:
www.caviaraffair.com
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Polina Steier Magazine is a fraud Palo Alto California
In addition to late payment, which is chronic and was noted by a previous report, Polina Steier's magazine, Caviar Affair, is a total and complete scam.
Caviar Affair's purpose is to take advantage of "press trips", which are free trips designed to give a journalist first hand experience of a location/hotel/restaurant etc in order for the writer to produce an insightful and personalized account of the represented location. These are often worth thousands and thousands of dollars.
The "staff" includes her parents Milla Sukonik and Peter Sukonik. Both barely speak English yet Milla consistently has bylines throughout the magazine and Peter takes most of the magazine's original photographs despite the fact that the horrific quality gives away that he is in no way a photographer. Polina and her parents take these free trips, sometimes jot a handful of mediocre notes (barely decipherable and usually in broken English) and then hand off the assignments to unsuspecting freelancers who produce something based largely on a press release and website. Polina and her parents literally travel the world enjoying free food and lodging by duping people that Caviar Affair is a legitimate publication.
Despite claiming to be quarterly, the magazine publishes only when it accumulates enough advertisements and advertorials (unmarked) to cover the cost of printing - one or two times per year maximum. And distribution is basically non-existent. Legitimate editors never stay longer than one issue because they leave as soon as the scam becomes apparent.
PR reps and potential advertisers: STEER CLEAR. You are being taken advantage of in order to subsidize freeloaders.
Writers: Accept assignments at your own risk.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Anonymous
oakland, ca,California,
USA
Writer Shows Bias in Complaint
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, March 24, 2017
I found this compaint by accident today.
I have also contributed to Caviar Affair, and yes, payment is often delayed but I have also contributed to "mainstream" publications that also wait 6 months to pay freelancers--that doesn't make a person or publication a fraud.
As far as by lines go and the suggestion that Mila and Peter Sukonik do not speak english is flatly untrue. I have a friend with a strong Polish accent with a degree in English from Cambridge that can write better than most native-speakers. The fact that an accent is strong is not an accurate gauge of language fluency. ALL submissions to ALL magazines are top-edited but the top editor doesn't get the by-line. Is this what the writer wanted? Not sure.
The writer showed a vindictiveness toward Polina that seems more personal than professional and was designed to hurt her reputation rather than to warn anyone of potential loss--yes, your payment might be late but is that why they make the rest of the insulting comments.
Peters photography is not horrible, there are sample digital issues on the website, caviaraffar.com (admittedly a site that needs a redesign) where one can view his work in several stories. I really don't think you will find bad photos in the book.
this is a small publication with a small private distribution. Magazines are a tough business. I did not find it more dysfunctional that the mainstream pubs. there are all pressure-cookers with very tough milestones to meet.
I like magazines and make my living contributing to them , so I do not think it serves any of us to go after the little guys who are courageous enough to get out there and produce one and who pay late.
I appreciate having a site that actually warns you of ripoffs but in this case, I don't believe the complainer actually suffered damages, its a shame to missuse the site for something so petty.
