I was hired by Dallas as a production assistant, staff photographer, makeup artist and talent for a TV extreme sports and beach lifestyle project he was working on called Beach Bodz. He also asked me to produce the PR marketing slicks for the show since I had done graphic design in my previous career. He put great pressure on me to get the pieces done as quickly as possible since my work was what ALL of our sponsorship was hinging upon and if I didn't get the slicks done in time we would loose our sponsors. At the same time, I was having to schedule photo shoots with several of the models since they didn't have the photos necessary to complete their materials. For nearly 3 weeks I burned the candle at both ends to make all of it happen. The models were paying me for the photo shoots out of their own pockets. I believe he felt that this was going to be enough to keep me appeased and that I wouldn't care that he wasn't paying me for the work I was doing for him.
I produced marketing materials for 11 of the shows "stars" as well as general marketing pieces and sponsorship package inserts. After the work was completed and he had high quality electronic copies of everything, he told me he didn't like what I had done and wasn't going to use them. Also, he said that he spoke with one of his many graphics design houses that he had worked with for many years and they felt that the number of hours I was billing was way out of proportion with the delivery of services so he wanted me to rework my invoice and resubmit. My question was why he didn't use one of those houses in the first place since he had "published 2 magazines" and had so many contacts. Now I realize the reason was that they wouldn't have done the work for free and that was what he was after. Even though he was not happy with the graphic design, he wanted me to still come to Hawaii and do all of the leg work of organizing and running the fashion show portion he was planning to do for Beach Bodz and emailed me a contract.
I resubmitted the invoice as he requested and gave him a substantial discount. Of course I did not see the check for my work. After contacting him several times he finally got back to me and said that he had a change of heart and wanted me to rework the graphic design with the help of an expert and he would be sending someone out. He also told me that he had made all of the arrangements for the fashion show (this was within the span of a week because he "works so fast") and he had his makeup artist that he needed for the show. Basically, the only job he wanted me to do was the one job I no longer do, graphic designer. Again I continued to contact him concerning my invoice and received no response until today at 4:30 am he said to call before noon because he was going to be getting on a plane to Hawaii. I am quite confident that I will never be paid for the work I complete for him and, more likely than not, the PR slicks I created are now the driving marketing force behind the project. I want to let others know of my experience with him so that maybe I can keep someone from losing their precious time and money on his lies.
There are several other girls that were doing work for him BEFORE I got involved and never got paid! One girl was finally paid after 6 weeks of free work and after bringing an investor to the table for the project. She was paid by money from ONE OF THE OTHER GIRLS!!! The plane tickets he used today were purchased by ONE OF THE GIRLS! He uses girls as pawns and will give a little to get a lot. He is scamming all of these girls to do work for what appears to be a bogus project and gets money from one to give to another. All of the girls who were lied to and became sick of his crap and started asking to many questions have been cut from the "production" and new girls that don't know any better are brought in to pick up where they left off and get scammed some more. Do not invest in this mans lies, you will loose your money and time!
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