Child modelling - Should I ask for refund?

[greenbean789]

Yesterday I did something irrational and impulsive, which is not like me at all. I paid £710 to a child modelling agency on the spot, and I never even had any aspirations for my children to be models. I don't know what happened to me.
I saw this ad on Facebook last week about child modelling and sent some pictures of my 2 DSs.
The next day I received emails from the agency saying that they are interested, and I should book an assessment session urgently, and that I have a priority (stupid me, thinking that it was due to my DC being super-cute).
I duly booked, excited, and yesterday had the photo-shoot. After the photo-session I was congratulated, saying my DC have great potential and the agency wants to sign them up. It all sounded like it was a big success for all of us, being chosen out of many people, bla- bla, etc.
All I needed to do was to buy one-off copyright.
I was then given a list of options, and I offered my card on the spot to pay. I had some warning bells ringing, but wilfully silenced them.
My husband is very upset that I had fallen for a scam. It the contract I signed there is a clause saying there is no refund.
I don't know what to do, to fight them and try to get the money back ( will have to read up on trading regulations for that) or wait that some offers will materialise and I can earn the money back. (They gave me a list of 14 other agencies to contact and some pictures). Do you have any experience of working with modelling agencies? Can you share your stories?
I know I was beyond stupid and vain, and maybe deserve it, but I did not even have all the money needed and used some from my overdraft .

Citizens Advice consumer helpline: 03454 04 05 06

Give them a ring, they will have had experience in this.

Fair point noeuf

How are you op?

IWantMyMumSheWouldBeProud I hope you had the OP's consent to comment on a contract sent privately to you. The terms you comment on seem to be at odds with everything the OP understood previously. I wonder if the contract included an Entire Agreement clause, and whether or not that clause would pass legal scrutiny.

Short piece on Entire Agreement clauses and misrepresentation:

www.glovers.co.uk/news_article389.html

Wow, I missed quite a lot on the thread!
Thank you I wantmymumshewouldbeproud, I do appreciate you spending time and effort over the weekend to look at my contract. I do believe in karma, your kindness will be rewarded!

Fascicle, I am happy for the details of the contract to be published here, I hope it will deter other people from being so gullible. I will need some time to read entire agreement clause, thank you for the link.

Noeuf, thanks for asking! I am having sleepless nights, reading up on all the links posted here regarding this scam. Unbelievable that's it been going on for decades and nothing has been done to prevent it from happening.

JuxtopositionRecords and noeuf thank you for being on my side! It is a struggle to prove that a scam is a scam, some people seem just jump at you with accusations.

Also, if it weren't for people owning up to being scammed, it would be much harder to stop other people being scammed.

If just one person is prevented from falling for the same tricks by reading this, then that's a positive outcome.

I'll also add for those who are castigating the OP, it's one thing for an agency to try to scam adults, but using children to do so is especially vile.

I think that is why people are more trusting then they otherwise would be, because they can't believe someone would fuss over and photograph your child in order to get money out of you.

Burstbee, Pointlessfriend, Ipitythepointerpines, yes. These agencies must be stopped from scamming unsuspecting people,and from what I am finding out, there are thousands out there.

I'm sorry this has happened to you my teen DD was waving something like this under my nose not long ago absolutely desperate to arrange an appointment. I rang them because they needed my permission due to her age and it sounded legit but as soon as I put the phone down I got busy on Google and that was that.

I'm a bit surprised you didn't do a quick search at any point ? I guess you'll have to chalk up to experience hard thought that is

Don't be too hard on yourself OP.

I really hope that you can do something about it. Best wishes for OH's recovery too.

What a great force MN is!
With your help I uncovered a LOT about shameful practices of so called model agencies.
Will be posting updates soon.

Have you managed to get any money back?

Update:

I haven't got my money back yet, but it has been quite a journey! From the moment I posted my OP to this moment I have come a long way!

Model Agency is a total scam!!! I told earlier on about the power of MN. And here is why:

There is a thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/2515152-www-m0del-co-uk, where fellow-mumsnetters bring this fraudsters to heel. They share their experience of dealing with them, getting their money back, with helpful links to legislation and links to report them to government agencies.

I found out there are two Facebook pages and a Twitter account devoted to the sole purpose of exposing this agency. So if you want to raise awareness please like the following link:
www.facebook.com/M0del-m0del-agency-uk-is-fake-and-illegal-213123462363198/?fref=nf
(Will post links to other groups later, can't find them right now).

Also, I got in touch with Clive Hurst, a campaigner, who has been working tirelessly to make changes to the law to stop these kinds of modelling agencies defrauding unsuspecting people. See his website www.anactor.net

Will post other findings later, time school run!

Good grief, there's a lot of bad legal advice on this thread.

The Caveat emptor/buyer beware doctrine has largely been set aside in consumer contracts by legislation and regulation, most recently the Consumer Rights Act 2015. OP you may well find that the contract is non binding as some terms are on the gray list or black list. You may also find that the contract doesn't meet the fairness, transparency or legibility requirements. Please have a look at the link below, it could help you.

To all the posters who are saying OP should have read the contract, here's a link to official guidance on the CRA:

most consumers do not read standard written contracts thoroughly before making a purchase.26 This finding cannot be considered surprising, and it is not clear how it would be practical or economically efficient for consumers generally always to read all the terms of all contracts into which they enter, given the number of transactions in which they are involved and other claims on their time.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/450440/Unfair_Terms_Main_Guidance.pdf

OP sorry this has happened to you. I hope you find resolution. In my experience, a strongly worded letter:
(1) asserting your rights under the CRA,
(2) asking for your money back,
(3) failing which you will take a claim to be refunded and ask the court to declare that the relevant unfair terms are not binding,

tends to focus the trader's mind about the potential long term impact to its business model.

Good luck

I also meant to ask, does the contract contain a non-reliance clause? If not, you may be able to say that you relied on negligent misrepresentations made by the agency that caused you to enter into the contract. Are they even an agency at all? Did they represent to you that they were?

Also - if you didn't read the terms, did they bring them to your attention? Did they explain the extent of their services, or just present you with a price list? If they didn't bring the terms to your attention, for instance by telling you specifically what you were paying for, they may have failed the prominence test in the CRA.

And to follow up on Farandole's excellent post, I would recommend - as per PPs! that if OP made the payment by credit card, she should approach her credit card company straight away.

She needs to raise a s75 complaint on the basis that there was misrepresentation as to the services provided - ie she was led to believe she was paying for agency representation, not just photographs. And follow that up with the bank and take it as far as the Financial Ombudsman Service if need be.

If she made it by debit card, she can't make a section 75 complaint but she can still ask for a chargeback, but I don't know how successful that might be.

Thank you Preggo ☺️ And good point on s75 if applicable.

Farandole, thank you for advice. Two more new legal terms to add to my ever-increasing glossary of legal terms, and I am getting more and more equipped to fight the case! Will read up on caveat emptor and non-reliance clause to see if they are applicable in my case.

Preggo, in my case s75 is not applicable, I paid by debit card, but anyway, my bank said they will try to get the money back.

I just want to add, following all the negative comments that were posted here, being a self-critical person that I am, I did a lot of soul searching and self-analysing if I was entirely to blame for what happened. And I realised, with the help of lovely mumsnetters, that I was not.

I did what many other average men and women on Clapham omnibus would have done in my place. It is not reasonably expected that average person would make a search on every company they deal with, read any contract they would sign, or reasonably expect they would be fleeced if not told otherwise. And contrary to what some posters said, I was not thinking of getting rich by making my children work, it was rather like taking an opportunity when it presented itself (on Facebook feed).

Now I know that Aggressive commercial practices are clearly defined in the law, so next time some sales people will crowd on me in a confined space in a room with the door locked, telling me I need to decide there and then, I will know that they are impairing my freedom of choice and thus committing a criminal offence. Or if they ask me to pay after inviting me to a "free" event, as clearly stated in their previously sent email, I will know that it constitutes a misleading action, which is against the law. And if they fail to state that they are not who they have been claiming to be, I will know it to be a misleading omission. Then I will run a mile.

But last Monday I went to the studio with my two small children as an average mum. I believed them when they said they were a respected agency who had Gap, Ralph Lauren and other famous brands amongst their clients. I believed them when they said they would pay £1500-2000 per job. I believed them when they said they only accept 20 out of 300 applicants, and my children were among the lucky few. Well, I shouldn't have, but I did, proud for my children to do so well.

And many other mums and dad and grandparents did, and will, in future. Because we believe in the best, we trust others as we would ourselves and find it unthinkable that someone will prey on us and our children.

Greenbean I've stuck up for you on this thread but you have to admit you were a bit naive I'm being polite and I don't think your argument that the average man on the clapham omnibus would do the same thing. I suspect most people wouldn't have fallen for this scam.

I'm not saying you were to blame for being scammed - it was the scammers that were at fault but you were very gullible.

Give over! You're laying it on a bit thick now. You didn't say any of that in your OP. You were had. They played on your vanity and you chose to pay for photos. It was a bad choice and I'll accept that it wasn't without persuasion, but so is every sale up and down the country. You had the chance to say no. You didn't say no.

Do I think they should do this? No. Do I think there should be laws stopping it? Quite possibly. But let's not pretend that you were mugged in the street. You were told what the deal was, you accepted the deal, then you thought better of it and no doubt a little foolish.

I hope you get some money back, but most of all I hope that anyone reading this thread in the future takes the message home that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is and that any offer that has to be signed on the spot is probably a scam.

Incidentally, a well known electricity/gas supplier called at our door while I was out one day and offered to 'quote' DH for supply. He filled in their form happily. He's not the most savvy chap in the world, by a long chalk. When I got home he causally mentioned it to me. I asked to see the form, glanced at it and said 'that's a flipping contract you fool!!' He had signed a supply transfer form, thinking it was 'just a quote'. I was on the phone to free company and had the whole thing shut down within 10 minutes, pointing out that they had taken advantage of his vulnerability. That was pure deception. The man actually lied about what the form was for. It was still ultimately DH's fault for agreeing without checking it out first, though.

OP sorry but I agree with the others.

Your were naiive. Simple.