Model agency uk- scam !

[Laylay100]

On Monday I went to take my son to w8 studios.
They say on their website they do not charge for joining. They fail to mention you cannot join without buying the 'copy rights' to the test shoot they do.
They then lie after and say you bought the portfolio off a different company and it has nothing to do with them.
Please do not use this company
Google model agency uk reviews
Awful people tried to intimate me outside their office when I warned mums about the scam. I managed to save 5 mums before they falsely called the police- who were very supportive of me and told me to seek advice from their fraud unit and these types of agency are everywhere and dodge the law by using a third party.
m0del agency or model agency - all the same. Please do not be fooled. A proper modelling agency will not take your money until they have secured you a job.
Awful people, no morals what so ever.
It's heart breaking to see kid being told they will defiantly be getting jobs if their parents pay out- only to be left without anything.
They are all over the uk so please remember a proper modelling agency will not ask you for hundreds of pounds and actually have companies they deal with (they couldn't name one).

just looked at their website. It does say they are not a model agency. From what I read they only do portfolio shoots.

Any usual child's model agency only ever want snaps of your child you have taken. Portfolio stuff is not necessary

Model agency uk is the same as the studio. They book you in there for a 'test shoot' which is free and then say you have to buy the copy rights to the photos in order to be accepted into their agency. It's all a scam.
model agency uk and mOdel agency are the same company operating at the same location.
I agree portfolio stuff is not necessary but they tell their clients it is in order to progress to their website.
All one big scam.

If you knew that a portfolio was not necessary then why even waste your time going. Dd and ds have been on agency books since a few weeks old. Any time when I came to look for a new agency, as they got older, I was asked for anything more than snap shots then I just didn't pursue.

Because I didn't know they were going to do before I went.

I went there today it seemed legit

im based in suffolk. i have a 3 year old red head daghter that i would like to try in modelling. What would be a good agency to go for? thank you

I am just adding my experience to many others online that have fallen foul of The Studio Modelling agency. These people also go under several different names including The Studio Collective, Studio Works, Dynamite Studio, and are currently based in Marylebone London. My son was contacted by them and asked in for a potential modelling shoot, he was asked to pay £50 as a deposit which was refundable should he be accepted as a model. He attended and called me from the shoot and was very excited as apparently they hadn't taken anyone on for 3 months and he was only the 13th person they had thought suitable for modelling for Hugo Boss. He put them on the phone and someone called Yasmin told me if he signed with them, he would be offered a guaranteed 5 PAID castings a month and that they already had a booking for him with ASOS for 28th April from which he would be guaranteed to receive £2,100. She explained that if I paid the required £3,450 he would be taken onto their books and that if I paid the modelling job with ASOS would already pay me back half of my investment within the month. I was very suspicious but on the assurance from them that I would receive an email with the contract confirming the conversation and the provision of their services within the next 2 hours. The email never came and to cut a long story short Barclaycard Fraud dept are now involved. I went into their offices in Marylebone to face them with my son and was told that these paid jobs were in fact "Castings" and that all that would happen was that my sons photos would be submitted along with 30/40 other hopefuls 5 times a month. In the meantime I contacted the legal Dept of ASOS and they have confirmed that they have never heard of any of these people and that they only deal with globally recognised model agencies. I showed this email from ASOS to the person we spoke to at the Studio and they claimed that the legal Dept at ASOS wouldn't be aware of what the rest of the company did! On leaving their offices we were smartly escorted out of the building by a large security guard and kept away from the other hopefuls (MANY OF THEM SMALL CHILDREN) and told that we could not claim a refund if we opted out of the contract (Not true actually as by law everyone has a 14 day cooling off period) Don't get sucked in by these people! Don't part with any money! ITS A TOTAL SCAM

I think there was a previous thread about this several years ago.

Oh my goodness, think I've been scammed by them too!
I'm determined to expose if this is indeed the case.
Anyone want to discuss?

Hi all, I am not a mum(in the future maybe I’ll be haha) but I just wanted to share this experience with all of you to make sure no one else’s child gets scammed by this company. They call themselves GT models and are a complete scam. I signed up on their website and got a call by this person “Ahmed” who claims he is the lead in GT models, took me step by step telling me they’ll be able to get me jobs to model for Topshop, Zara and other High Street brands. I got so excited that I did not think it through before I gave him my card details as he said I had to give a 50pound deposit to secure my place at the test photo shoot. I attended the photo shoot at New York Fashion studios, which claimed they were a model platform to get me into the modelling industry. The photo shoot took hours and the stylist and make up artist were not professional at all, they literally took just 3 minutes to do everything. There were five looks in total, and for three of them I had to go out into the freezing cold with very few clothing. I wasn’t complaining at all, I knew that it takes hard work and I was willing to put up with anything. After a long day, I was so tired and hungry so I really wanted to go home but they said I had to stay for the assessment. Three different people came up to me and they all seemed nice...too nice. Finally at 8.30pm a woman led me into a room for my assessment and the whole time for an hour she explained what a model platform was, how it was different to a model agency and how this shoot will lead to get jobs very quickly. She was also asking me repeatedly if I was sure I wanted to be a model in which I replied yes. I was so tired and my brain wasn’t functioning properly anymore when she then told me in order to pass I had to have 40 photos out of the 100 plus that were took that met the standards, and said I got 56. Imagine how happy I was....it was then that she took out a price list. There were the options for 10, 20, 40 and 80 photos and she said that for the portfolio I had to have 40 photos which cost around 800 pounds. The price of the portfolio did not include the photos and it was around 800 too so it was a really huge sum of money. There was a package deal that included the photos, portfolio, and a ‘Z- card’ , but even that was 2000 altogether. I asked her if I could have time to think about it but she said I had to make the decision then and there. I said I could not pay that upfront so I would pay in instalments in which she agreed, so I paid 900, plus the deposit which was 50. I was stunned as in the emails that I received prior to the shoot had no information on this and even said that I will not be charged for it. She made me sign contracts and I made the mistake of not reading before I signed them. Reading the contract now, it did not mention that they will help me in any way, and it was my responsibly to send my portfolio to GT models, which was different to what the woman had promised. I should’ve known it was all too good to be true. I can’t believe how easy it was for them to extort money from innocent people and not feel bad at all! I just hope more people will know so that the word will spread out and stop them from scamming anyone for over and for all!

Stop pimping out your kids

It sounds like a mine field, has anyone had any experience with MMA model agency based in Manchester ?.

Springtime25- this has happened to my son he was contacted by Ahmed he was told he had to pay £100 for the photo shoot which he was told was a deposit which he would get back when he turned up he was pressurised in to paying a further £350 and has signed up to paying 4 monthly instalments of £268. We are currently cancelling the direct debits, I just wondered if you had any advice on how you got out of this.

Hi Claire,

100 for the photoshoot?! That is CRAZY. Okay first and foremost you need to go to your bank and inform them that you have been scammed. If you have a mobile banking app, you can cancel your direct debit to them. Just go to your bank and they’ll show you how. Secondly, call PayPal and tell them everything too. I am still waiting for PayPal to re-evaluate my case but it’s hard to say whether I’ll get my 900 pounds back. I hate these scammers.!! I hope they get rightfully punished.

There is one in Southend: Malcolm Bailey Photography. I say it is a scam because its main presence is on Facebook only, because pages get mysteriously deleted and because the models do not do well, they end up homeless and anorexic.

And anyone who thinks "surely these dirty old men are just maligned consummate professionals" should look up "Ephebophilia".

Hi I’m not a mum I am on the other hand someone who has been to a “model agency” with my mum called visual studios so I signed up online and it said I was “shortlisted” so everything would be free but I had to pay a £50 deposit well it all seemed real so we went (London) and everything seemed cool it was a very small place which was a bit strange they did the photo shoot the photographer was very impatient and rude and not understanding of the fact I had no experience and didn’t know many poses we then after were bring into the office to view the photos and the lady in there was complementing and saying I would get loads and loads of jobs after I pay £3600 for a portfolio !! They ended up basically forcing us to agree by manipulating us making my mother feel like she had to or she was a bad parent so she agreed they told us we would get the portfolio between 4-6 weeks . 6 weeks later nothing so we started worrying 3 months later still nothing ! We read reviews which yes we should’ve done before but 🤦🏼‍♀️They said it was a scam And she tried contacting them again nothing so she figured it was a scam and should cancel before they steal more money a few months later she’s getting threats saying they’ll get debt collectors which they haven’t so we still think they are a scam and just trying to scare us into paying so basically make sure you read all reviews before and maybe even look on YouTube for how to know if a model agency is real or even that specific agency just be very weary ! I have since read a model Agency will not make you pay until you have a job and will take a percentage rather than making you pay LOADS of money straight up :/

When I said homeless and anorexic I guess I was sugar-coating it, so I'm going to throw in also alcoholic, codependently attached, roughed up and borderline turning tricks to get by...

Hi did you go to them what was the outcome

Just to say it's eerie to meet someone who's "Done Modelling", especially if they have no money. As if that's the scam, it's a Gateway to blackmail people into doing pron.

Hi @Springtime25 did you have any repercussions from cancelling the direct debit?

I'm adding this link because it shows the area where this acquaintance of mine's life has gone to(it's about someone like her, not her), also others may find it helpful:
www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/life-504/family-other-relationships-50/232886-daughter-throwing-her-life-away.html
The person I mean is someone who wears her alcoholism like a badge of pride, is stuck with an abusive older man because she has burned her bridges, and has alienated her friends. If he's too weak to confront her about her addiction, she'll die. As it is, he's enabling it. Doesn't sound like the glamourous high life ever opened up for her.

Has anyone got any experience with 'Model Central'? They posted an enticing ad on Facebook this week and like an active Mum I sent my kids details ... but think it might be a scam as well.
Thanks in advance

Hi, please don’t go there, I replied to an ad from model central, got a email few days later from “Caitlin” saying my daughter was shortlisted. And to reply to her email if I except, I did. She called me a few days later and I need to pay £50 just to make sure we will turn up on the day and it will be refunded if we are not successful, or if we don’t except there offer. On the day we went to central London, off Oxford Street, the process was so long, hours and hours and at the end of course we were excepted taken to a very tiny room, viewed the photos and the price list come out, not cheap, huge amounts of money £1000s. Obviously I didn’t fall for they’re scam, but I saw others there who did. I mean you can go and try by all means, but don’t give them any monies. I’m still trying to get my £50 from Caitlin, but she’s not answering my emails.. I hope this is helpful.

Anyone heard of spark-models my daughter has been approached and asked for the £50 deposit. Is this a scam?