5 August 2011

"The Event" coming to town. Is it for real?

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All this week, driving to and from work, I’ve been hearing frequent ads on 106.3 flogging something called “The Event”, which purports to be a big-time talent scouting session for kids. Something about the ads didn’t feel right, so I decided to do some digging last night, and ended up being a bit concerned by what I found.

It would appear that this thing may be a giant scam, with the purpose of separating families with stars in their eyes from thousands of dollars. It’s been running for a couple of years in the US, and appears to have gone international, with “Events” in Melbourne, Tweed Heads, and now, Canberra.

These links provide stories on the setup from the US:

http://www.bizparentz.org/nedgam.html

http://double19productions.blogspot.com/2011/01/tay-acting-and-modeling-scam.html

So just a caution to any Rioters who might be taking their kids along to this thing. Think very carefully before handing over potentially thousands of dollars to these guys.

PS: Yes, I’ve been listening to 106.3. But lets leave discussion of my radio listening habits to another time.

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There was a similar post about 2 months ago.

Child talent agency with “connections”, pay to get acting lessons, no guarantees. Sounds like a pretty easy (and legal) way to get money out of people tbh

Ok so we went there yesterday , we were told originally that my daughter would be auditioing for disney , she thought maybe an extra on disney channel , she entered online and just thought it was a competition. anyway so we sat through a dvd that was very much like a timeshare video. it was then we found out that this :” event” was actually in america , yes the usa . initially we thought ok you are picked and they pay for you to compete! so my daughter auditioned. after going home afterwards we find out that it would cost around 7000.00 plus all expenses to the usa. all work or callbacks as they said would only be in america , so even if it was legit what were we supposed to do camp in america. they said that not all people would get in. so just curious i call today and she says yes she is one of the 8 from her age group that got it
but heres the kicker ” you have to pay today
yes thats right!! Im not sure if its a scam ( its a sly way to make money of peoples hopes and dreams as they do not promise anything . I did as soon as i got home googled it and came up with the fact it was a money spinner
its just like a star search competition like i remember you had to pay an entry fee , but are they stupid to think that parents would pay all that money and flights and accomodation to the us , just to be rewarded with maybe a walmart commercial ( yes believe it or not this is in their testimonials)

but folks to ask for money upfront no ways to pay deposits ( no way to funsraise for your child to compete in this fantastic competition.
we were told there were rounds you would need to pay for however many you would like to compete in
but what happens if it is a legit competition does that mean if you do not pass the first round you lose all you entry fee
yes the grand prize winner does receive a 50.000 cheque
but blah it all seems a bit wishy washy
how do you break the news to these kids who reallky want to be an actress , singer or model
sorry kids it was dodgy
they mustnt think very much of us aussies if they think we are stupid enough to fall for this nonsense

thankyou for publicising this.

Rawhide Kid Part311:26 am 05 Aug 11

Maybe you should report this to Scam Watch and http://tinyurl.com/3nm99e5

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