Kathleen seemed great at first. She showed up on time (even early), had enough food for everyone and was accommodating to dietary needs for cast and crew. She worked for three days.
When it came time for payment for the next week, she invoiced me for two checks: a payment for the upcoming week and a check for groceries. That sounded reasonable to me. When I gave them to her, I asked that she wait to cash them until 2pm the following day, because there was a strong chance our production was going to be put on hold. She said we would chat before she went shopping.
When I got word the next day that our production was on hold, I called her at 2pm. She got very angry and said she had already spent the money. I said no problem, if she could just return the groceries and give back what was left, we would be square. I didn't even ask for her deposit back-I would have let her keep it anyway for the inconvenience.
Well, she went into a tirade about returning food and said everyone on my crew was going to hate me for canceling the shoot. Okay, whatever. She said she thought maybe she could just give me the food she had purchased, but was vague about the details and never followed up on it.
All in all, she's an exceptional swindler. She made off with around $700, plus her deposit for the next week. And I never got her tax id since our production ended so abruptly, and couldn't send her a 1099-MISC for my tax records.
0 comments