Baby modelling - danger signs?

HelenYorkshire

Hi all,
Hope this is in right place...

I'm of the opinion that most things out there are scams. My friend however... :rolleyes::mad:

She has received an "acceptance" letter from a child / baby model agency for her 2 kids (one 18 months, one a few weeks). Now apart from a few spelling mistakes and rolling my eyes at the OTT compliments ("sparkling eyes and beautiful characters" yack! Lol), my alarm bells went off when I saw a phrase like
"...come in for a photoshoot, with a deposit of only £25....."

Friend said £25 is nothing (well for 2 kids it's £50 anyway!!), but in the small print it said non-refundable, and to me the word "deposit" means there's more to pay later. Also nowhere did it say they guaranteed to find you work.

Having typed all this I can't remember the name of the agency :mad::doh: I think it may be [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]? They claim to have placed kids in adverts, commercials and things like [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM].

I tried telling her a good agency would at least only take money AFTER you've done a job but....

Any thoughts / experiences anyone? Or alternatively does anyone know any reputable agencies to shove her towards???

tigtag02

Dont touch ANY agency that ask for ANY money up front is really the only adivce I can offer ~ pretty much as you have tried to tell your friend.

The mumzone (I think thats its name) website may have a forum thats helpful in the way of reputable agencies

dmg24

You are correct, a reputable agency will only take commission after work has been found.

kittyclaire_2

i agree...i signed my daughter up to a modelling agency when she was 3 and its the usual crap shes beutiful she find work no problem...
i made the mistake of paying £100 up front shes 10 now and i havnt heard 1 thing from them.
2bh cant even remember what they were called...

pinkshoes

In 2004 they changed to law so that it was illegal for modelling agencies to charge fees up front, but lots of bogus companies don't seem to know this...

Any genuine modelling agency would take their fee from a cut in the money they make from the modelling jobs, and would NEVER ask for any money up front.

Maybe they have placed kids in adverts before, but who knows that it's not 1 child getting work for every 100 on their books?

perhaps your friend should read this:
http://www.safemodelling.org.uk/index.htm

hollydays

Google a few similar comments and print them out and show your friend. Us parents can be vey proud of our kids,so some can be very prone to exploitation. One day she will realise how foolish she has been,and see you ae a true friend who was trying to help her.Just tell her ,she has very cute kids but they deseve better..

davidlizard

We had a couple of similar type email "offers" a few months back when our youngest was born - "We think your baby is beautiful and have lots of clients blah blah, please send us a registration/insurance fee of £49.99 etc". Anyway, how do they know what our baby looks like?

The fact that one had a yahoo email address on it, and both looked like it had been spell checked by a 5 year old meant they were not taken seriously. An IP look up had them both originating in the UK. Needless to say, the website one linked to closed (or more likely was closed) a few days later.

I suspect they got our email address from one of the baby type websites that provide info and freebies, and are probably less than scrupulous who they sell customer information to.

lemonpie_2

This is the first time I've posted a message so hope I'm doing this right! Just wanted to say that I signed my daughter up for a modelling agency a couple of years ago when she was about 9 months and it cost around £175 for her to go on their books and they took portfolio pictures of her which they put in a big catalogue of all their models which they said they supply to their clients. I was sceptical about whether it was a scam at the time but I have to say that she averaged a modelling job of 1 a month for the first year. She earned almost £1200 so it was well worth the outlay. She didn't get any calls however after her last job where she just refused to co-operate so I guess the work only keeps coming so long as they perform well!

vetfred

No agencie,s whether it be for modelling, music, whatever, should be asking for your outlay - if they are good at what they do, they will trust they can make money from their decisions on who will make them money and take the initial outlay for photos/cds/whatever from their own pocket and recoup their outlay later (and profit later) from the work they've secured for you.