Well, I too got sucked in and promised all sorts of "work" if only I sign up with ExploreTalent.com and the jobs will pile in..."Your pics are great!!! You should be able to get lots of work..." I was told... Hmmmm... The reps over the phone know just how to appeal to one's ego!
Well, all I can say is this was a learning experience. Yes, I lost about $100 CDN ($80 US) for joining up all of two useless months, I'll never get that hard earned $ back, but I guess all it was was an exercise in futility. I blame no one but myself for joining. I should have done some research first, but hey, it happened and now I feel I should share my story to others before, they too, get sucked in.
LOL! At first I joined up on the "free" part of this website... What a joke! You get squat! But get this: its just a carrot-dangler because they say your profile will only get "submitted" to interested parties (ie: casting agents, modelling agents, directors, etc) if you're a *paid* member of Explore Talent.com. OK I can buy this I thought. I'll try it and see what happens. I bought a month-to-month membership (THANK GOD IT WAS DONE THIS WAY)
When I accessed the part of the website that you can search through other members, I saw that a person can "rate" each individual for attractiveness on a scale of 1-10! HOW VERY CHEESY I THOUGHT. This didnt seem like a legimate business offering up ways for people to break into the entertainment industry, it reminded me of the freakish website "ARE YOU HOT OR NOT! God, for all I know maybe these two sites are one and the same. It just didnt feel right.
So, anyhow, after two months of seeing my own personal "calender" with a whole bunch of useless submissions on it, I only got two bites. One was to "audition" for a small-town NY state theatre play and an "audition" for a p/t 2 week job for a lingere company. ("Oh go to Chicago for a week at your own expense just for the priviledge to "audition" for a p/t gig at our wonderful company~ gag) I never claimed to have any theatrical experience whatsoever. GMFB.
Please people! Wake up and smell the SCAM... They advertise people on this sight who *may* have actually gotten work through their services with pictures and what they were allegedly paid. They probably all live in Beverly Hills. Hey maybe some people did get jobs but they must be few and far between and why is it that ExploreTalent does not release that statistic to the public?
The stats they DO advertise on part of the site claims to have a total Talent in the database: 360,311... My God. No where does it say on this stats page the number of people who actually got paying jobs through their service! Kinda important don't you think??? The chances of one getting struck with lightning are better then the average person hoping to get any paying job throught this service...
One positive thing was I was able to cancel the membership quickly and stopped my credit card from future billing.
Please do yourselves a favour and research companies like this before you subscribe to them. You may be saving yourself alot of time, money and mostly frustration in the long run.
I wish I had trusted my instincts on this one. Good luck to all.
Lisa
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
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