Scam Alert
Introduction
If you have dealt with someone who has tried to scam you or someone you know in the Voice Over Industry whether it is a voice over casting agency or a client please use this section to inform your fellow voice over talent about it and, if possible, the details of the incident.
By Scamming I don’t mean someone that was late for payment so please don’t post someone’s information here to get back at a tardy client. This section is put up for the purpose of helping fellow voice over artists avoid dealing with dubious individuals and organizations.
How To Avoid Being Scammed
To avoid getting scammed or swindled please read the following and use your head before agreeing to work for a dubious online client:
- Offer seems way too good to be true.
- Consistent typos in emails and job offers
- The email behavior of the user is aggressive, hostile, and filled with ultimatums.
- Avoid jobs that originate from India, Nigeria, club DJ’s, and small computer companies in Europe seeking a grand amount of work for little money.
Terms of Use
The views expressed on this page and posted by participants are not those of Mahmoud Taji and he is in no way liable in the event of a defamation lawsuit or financial investigation. All comments left by VO artists are attributed to themselves.
Removal
If you or your company are listed here… then its probably for a reason. If you wish to be removed then please pay all your outstanding payments to the voice over artist (or artists) who submitted the original complaint and provide me with proof. Otherwise you stay on the list.
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I was hired in November working with Newspapers for the Blind. They required reading articles (in my case from the London newspapers). These articles were long and and as I am relatively new to editing took ages. Then the person in charge decided because these people were also partially deaf that I needed to change my sound system. I did this willingly because I thought I had a steady job. At quite a bit of expense I was ready to start working again and it was then he turned out to be a complete nightmare. I reported him to Voices 123 which is where I got the job and they said they had banned him from the site as he had done similar things to other people but it is important that he doesn’t turn up like a bad penny and do the same thing to others. Needless to say I never got paid.
DO NOT work for Josh Ryan or Scarlett Marketing (based in Portland, OR). I did the VO for the Gorge Games which ended up airing on Fox Sports. Took me 8 months to get a check which bounced when I deposited it. He has since ignored all requests to be paid (another 8 months worth of calls and e-mails). The guy is a slime bucket … caveat emptor!
Hello Taji:
Voice-overs aren’t the only victims of scammers. I found a number of websites where you could check and report internet scams. You never know when you might need them:
http://www.joewein.net/index.htm
http://419eater.com/
http://wiki.aa419.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://fraudaid.com/
http://www.scambaits.net/forum/index.php
http://fraudwatchers.org/
Juliette Gray is not the only one who has had ‘a less than positive’ experience’ with the founder and editor of Newspapers for the Blind.
Here is my tale of caution:
http://tinyurl.com/yfef3bm
Mark,
It may be too late now. But at one time in Texas if you had a check, you could take it to the bank it was written on and leave it there for collection. There was a fee (of course, it’s a bank) but essentially as soon as money is deposited in the account, they pull out the amount of the check and send it to you. It’s been awhile, but you might check into it.