Aaron Marcus, an actor with 39 years of experience, breaks down a modeling scam that starts with an unsolicited email promising European billboard work. The scheme sends you a $10-12k check to deposit, you pay photographers and makeup artists from it, then the check bounces and you're out the money. Marcus also had his image stolen for a fake solar company ad.
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Hey, in this video I'm going to be sharing with you information about this just horribly disgusting scam that I experienced. And if you watch this till the end, you will receive a great bonus video. It's the new self-tape rules that SAG-AFTRA negotiated. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Where I share information with you based on my 39-plus years of working as a full-time actor. So this was a number of years ago, but I know these things still exist. And let me just start off by saying this makes me so angry because, look, breaking into the acting industry is hard enough, and learning how to go about having success Is difficult. And then you have these people out there who are preying on you, who are trying to rip you off. They know very specifically what people want to hear, and they know how to manipulate you, especially if you don't have the knowledge, which you wouldn't know at the very beginning of your career. And they have killed so many careers for people because people think that This is the way the industry runs. And they get discouraged, they quit, they've lost a lot of money. And I'll tell you, it really, it really bothers me and angers me. And I just wanted to ask, hey, if you ever experienced a scam, please, you don't have to mention the name of anything, just talk about the process, what happened to you, and share it in the description section so that way we can learn from you as well. So I received an email. And they said— this company said they saw my photos, loved them, and they wanted to hire me to do a number of billboards throughout Europe. So considering that I never heard of these people, and like, this wasn't that long ago, so I knew immediately it was a scam, but I wanted to play it out. I wanted to see how they went about doing it so that I could learn from it. And share it with other people. So I immediately got back in touch with them and I'm playing along and I'm telling them, this is great. Sounds wonderful. I wanted to ask when they were going to be flying me out to Europe, what airports, what airlines, what exactly is the usage. They did mention it could be on billboards, but I wanted to get some specific information from them. Immediately, even though I knew it wasn't going to happen. So they wrote back. And the other thing that was interesting, their English was— it was okay, but they were making some grammatical mistakes. Not, not just spelling, but just even word, um, the way they would use some words. So I, I could tell that English wasn't their first language. And here's basically what they said. They said that because they are hiring people from around the country to do these, what they're going to do instead of flying me out to Europe, they are going to send their own photographer and makeup artist to me and do the shoots here. And so I said, okay, you know, that's fine. You know, what are the dates? And once again, I still needed to get all the specifics. And I'm trying to remember, I think I want to say they were going to pay me about $7,000 for the job. And so here's— to make a very long story very short, here's how the scam works. They said that it's much easier for them bookkeeping-wise To send me a check. I can't remember, it was like $12,000, $10,000, something like that. And then I would pay the makeup artist and the photographer. And so I would keep the $7,000 for myself, they would get the other $3,000 or $5,000, whatever it was. And that's how the thing would go. They would shoot it and then the ads would start running. So I immediately went to my bank. I also called a government agency in my state about this, and they said, yeah, we hear about these similar things, not necessarily bad acting, but— and when I also— and so they were aware that these things are taking place. When I spoke with someone at the bank, a manager there, they said, so here's what's going to happen. You'll get a check, you will deposit it, and you'll probably get the check like the day of the shoot, something like that, or maybe the next day. You will write these people a check for the $3,000 or $5,000, and then you're gonna find out in a day or two that the check that I just deposited bounced, and you'll never get that money back. So essentially I'd be paying these people $3,000 or $5,000 and I'm out the money. So look, if you ever are contacted and you have no idea where these— where these people, you know, are from, how they got in touch with you— I mean, they didn't even— they didn't even tell me where they saw my photos. They didn't tell me what specific shots they liked that got me booked on this job. And I know the feeling of— because I experienced some of these things earlier on in my career where I'm thinking, I know this sounds crazy, but this might be my one shot. This could really change things for me. This could be my first booking. It's going to be running in Europe. This is incredible. If something just sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And there are ways of trying to check things out to make sure. You know, go to the company's website, see if they do list some clients that they've done ads for. Get in touch with those companies, you know, and see if they actually did ads You know, for those people. And on a very side note, here's just another thing, and this is happening right now, and it's a little bit different, but it's in the same category. A friend of mine in Florida contacted me and sent me a picture of an ad that I was in, and it was on Facebook. It was a Facebook ad, and I think it was actually running in a video on Facebook, and it's all about solar energy. And it listed all these different solar or these energy companies like Duke and like really big companies. And it's a picture of me. I'm holding a residual check in my hand. You can't tell it's a residual check. It was a shot and a thumbnail that I created for one of my quick tip videos. They stole it. They stole it from me. And certainly— That's crazy. There wasn't, they didn't ask permission and there was no payment. I mean, it's illegal what they did. And so the very first thing I did was I contacted one of the big energy companies and I spoke to someone in the legal department. I said, look, this is what's going on. Here's what I learned, that it's an illegal company. What they do is they are selling solar energy to people because there is a number you can call, although I, it wasn't, I didn't see it. But yeah, you can call the company. company, and they have absolutely no connection with all these big energy companies. They're using their names to legitimize them, and these people are thieves. And, you know, I'm going to try my best to try to track down and find out who actually put the ad together, but none of the companies that were listed in there are aware of it, have any connection with this company. So this stuff happens all the time, and honestly, sometimes it just— it bothers me so much. It's like, how, how can people do this to other people where they knowingly rip people off, they knowingly cheat them, they knowingly rob them of their dreams, especially if you think you're going to be getting a job in the industry, and then they just go back to their families? And this is their job, just cheating people. I don't get it. And look, I know I'm kind of jumping here. Look, I know there are so many wonderful people in this world who are doing so many great things. And so I really— for me, it's just a personal thing. I have to really compartmentalize and just understand, yes, there are horrible things taking place. And I have to try to focus more on the good that people are doing in this world, even if it's just the little things. So anyhow, I wanted to share those things with you. Please be very careful if you're being contacted and it's unsolicited. Maybe if you have an agent, send it through your agent, you know, or contact an agent, see if they know anything about it. But please do your due diligence and just make sure that everything that you're doing is Legitimate and you're working with a legitimate company. Hey guys, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, uh, subscribe, click the notification bell. Uh, that way you always know when I upload a new video. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's very helpful. And most importantly, share, uh, this link with fellow actors. Uh, if you have an email list or social media platforms, so we can continue to build a great channel with actors who are actually helping each other, sharing stories, sharing information. And, you know, we're not competing with each other at all. We're actually there to try to help each other, which is what I love doing. I did promise, uh, here is the link for the video. You might see 2 links. One is another video that you can watch. It's a channel or one of the playlists, and also you can also see the video that I created about the new self-tape guidelines that SAG-AFTRA negotiated, which is really very important to know about. Even if you're not in the union, you still want to know about this. So anyhow, I'm Aaron Marcus. This was great. I love sharing this with you and can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
