I was watching MTV when I saw a commercial advertising that they were looking for models in my area. All I had to do was call 1800 MODELING. I called and got an appointment to be seen. When I arrived to the location, there were already about 60 people there ahead of me, all of us waiting for the same thing. After we filled out paperwork, we were hurded into this room in groups to get 3 digital pictures of us taken, then we were measured.
Then we were hurded out of that room, into another room, were we were asked to smile in front of this talent scout, as she scribbled down secret messages on our applications, which were confidential and only for the eyes of the decision makers in the headquarters who would decide if we had what it takes to be in the modeling business.
We were rounded up for a 3rd time into this mini-seminar to find out even more bullshit about the company and to be told how much their service would cost. $995.00 was the fee with $19.95/month maintenance fee. They told us to sit there after the seminar was over to wait and find out if we were amongst the selected few to be accepted by headquarters. Needless to say, I was selected, as was everyone in the seminar room, I know now. I was scheduled to have a phone interview the next evening.
A rep called me, but I told him I wasn't interested anymore because it was too expensive and I couldn't afford it. He told me it wouldn't be a problem for someone to work with me on the cost issue. He said another rep would be calling me back in 10 minutes to set that up. After we hung up, I jumped on the computer to check out thier website.
I put Wilhelmina Scouting Network in MSN search engine and instead pulled up a truck load of scam reports, saving me from financial devastation in the nick of time. The rep did call me back as planned and I told him I didn't want to procede any further with this because I found all this negative information about them on the internet. His response was "oh... Ummm... Ok. Well... Have a good evening then." That was it. Not even one incling of defense for his company.
This turned out good for me in the end, but there were sooo many people at the open call for models. People who had no idea that this whole thing was just a big scam, me included. How can we stop these people from ripping off hundreds of people and getting away with it? We've got to do something, whether its educating the masses on this scam, or running WSN or whatever it calls itself these days out of business this time for good. I'm willing to join the fight, if I just knew where to start.
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