DD applying for what I think is a fake job.

[Ironpants]

It's a PA to a wedding photographer, suits her down to the ground. The salary is nearly £35k which seems way too much, I obviously googled the photographer & the website is v amateur with spelling and grammatical errors. The pictures are fairly amateurish and the company isn't registered anywhere and has no reviews.

To pay a PA that salary, it must have a turnover of what, £100k? I've never owned a business so I don't know but surely a company with that turnover would be registered at companies house?

Sounds sketchy. It could be a scam where they ask her to put money in to ´invest’ or even just to print out her photography portfolio or similar. If she has an in person job interview then offer to drive her there. Tell her not to hand over any bank details until she’s seen a contract and some actual photography work being done by someone there.

It’s almost definitely a scam. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Once your DD has made the initial application they’ll be asking her for a portfolio of her work and a fee to review it or register her on something. I had to go and get money back for a friend a long time ago who’d been scammed like this when she wanted to earn a bit of money in her early pregnancy.
Its an old one and is clearly doing the rounds again.

It isn't strange that a wedding photographer doesn't have a limited company per se. There is no requirement to have a limited company just because you have a particular turnover. I would be more concerned by the unprofessional website and photos. It doesn't bode well for it being a great career move.

If your DD is asked to pay for anything related to the job interview, then I would advise her to run a mile.

Thank you @chesirecat99 et al. Clear advice passed on!

Turnover is different to profit so for turnover of £100k minus expenses minus their own salary, to minus £35k for a PA is huge (as a %), unless there are multiple photographers.

similarly for that turnover you would expect a high end professional website, which is perhaps the biggest red flag.

Trust your instinct.

If if sounds too good to be true, it is

That all sounds odd. Not being registered at Companies House is not unusual but no reviews and an amateur website would concern me. Do they have any social media or are they advertised anywhere?

There's a locked "company" insta and a personal one with even worse photography! No ads anywhere.

it's got to be fake. A profit that high would surely mean they were in a magazine or something?

Google suggests that the average cost of wedding photography in the UK is £1600-2000. So if a freelance photographer does one wedding every Saturday, that's £83k - 105k turnover per annum.

Overheads are low - camera equipment, computer, software, travel, printing costs, insurance, paid advertising. Most of the turnover will be profit.

If he delegates a lot of the work eg editing, social media marketing, admin etc to your DD and pays her £35k, that leaves him a lot of profit for a few hours work per week. It could be that this is a sideline and he has a weekday job so wants to delegate a lot of the work. Or if he can double up on the number of weddings by having an assistant, he will be charging £83k+ and paying £35k (well, a bit more once you take into account NI).

It is feasible.

It's the poor quality photos and website that are concerning. How does he actually get any work if the photos look awful? Is it a front for a scam?

@chesirecat99 thats really interesting. The job ad
didnt mention editing, just booking travel and accommodation in "Devon, London and the USA" and managing bookings.

My view? It's like a fantasist! The website has dreamy pictures of the photographer that are badly filtered, and it's highly self congratulatory. Oh and It's a she, not that it matters.

The photos are just about as good as you can do with a 5 year old iPhone, really not what I'd expect if I paid a few grand.

the profit is interesting! Not that it's my cup
of tea but I had no idea it could have been so lucrative!

I would imagine that lots of wedding photographers don't have bookings every week, @Ironpants, especially out of wedding season, but then they might have weekday weddings, Jewish weddings on Sundays... It is feasible that a good photographer who is demand could easilly turn over that much.

It doesn't sound like she is a good photographer though 😂

Someone likely to be booked every weekend (equivalent throughout the year) is going to have some pretty good reviews.

Whilst it’s possible to have £100k turnover on that assumption; paying for advertising, travel, insurances etc. plus an asst salary of £35k means they’d be netting the same which seems v unlikely. So still bollocks in my view and a huge underestimate of costs of a business.

Care to share their website link?

You know the rules OP.
Share the link lol

Isn't 35k the amount someone needs to be earning to get certain visas to come to the UK?
It could be a contrived job to get a potential spouse into the country.

I know two wedding photographers and they certainly couldn't afford to have a PA. Why would they even need one?

I don't get the vibe it's a visa scam, the photographer sees herself as a z list celebrity, a name that was famous locally but has long since been sold off but that left a lot of inherited wealth in the area. Think, Hornby or similar. That's why I think it's part of a fantasy lifestyle. DD and friends were quite drawn by the low level celeb thing, my digging has led me to believe there's less to this business than meets the eye!!

Ah this is genius sleuthing, I think you're right.

Hopefully the worst outcome is that your DD is simply not successful in getting the job.

You can employ staff without registering as company.

I reckon it'll be some kind of 'self employed-commission based' thing.

Why would you need to advertise in that situation? I know nothing about it but I'd assume anything like that involves people already known to each other or do you advertise and hope someone in that position sees it?

No harm in applying to find out more

The job ad didnt mention editing, just booking travel and accommodation in "Devon, London and the USA" and managing bookings.

Be wary of anything involving money transfers. E.g. we send you money, you make the booking and send us back what’s leftover. It’s money laundering or a scam wher you end up out of pocket.

I applied for what I though was a legitimate admin job from ab ad on a job website, but when I got the description I realised it was a scam.

I'd be concerned this was exploitation - your DD gets an interview and the "photographer" states she doesn't have enough experience for the PA role, but she's very pretty has she thought about modelling? You can see where it could go.

The fact the website claims the photographer is a she means nothing. Try reverse searching some of the images.