Back in late I decided to visit a few talent agencies and see if it was something my daughter would be interested in trying. I visited Elizabeth Savage and was told that in order for ES talent to retain my daughter I must first pay for in house head shots to keep on file. Not knowing any better I agreed and scheduled the shoot.
However, when I went home that day and did a little more research I discovered that one should never pay for professional head shot for a small child (my daughter is 3) because their faces change so fast. Most reputable agencies will take photos the parents provide. This is because most reputable agencies primary source of income comes from a percent off of the work your child does and not from running a head shot factory in the basement of their offices. ES claims that they do this to ensure their models get work, which is funny due to the fact that they insist all photos come from their in house photographer, and will not accept even professional photos from somewhere else.
Obviously this is simply a scam to get parents to pay for head shots, knowing full well that the vast majority of children who come in will never get work, and it costs ES nothing to keep a child on its files on the off chance that someone calls.
So now that I realized I had made a mistake, I physically entered the office and canceled the photo shoot expecting them to simply credit my card back the several hundred dollars they insisted on up front. I canceled well within the 3 business days that are listed on their contract as the deadline for a full refund with a cancellation. I was informed that ES does not credit the card back, but will be sending me a refund check in the mail. This is suspicious first off, but I agreed (what else could I do?) and waited. Two months pass and I still receive nothing. I call and ask what happened to my check, and was informed that they switched offices (this should somehow matter to me) and that they were sure my check was in the mail.
It is now almost 7 months after the fact and I still haven't even received a single email or phone call explaining just what happened to my money.
*Fair warning to hopeful parents. If your little snowflake is marketable, you wont be asked to pay for anything up front, and any half decent photographs of your child (under 5) would be acceptable.
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