On July 28 I signed with Marvel Models for an agreement for their agency to promote me for modeling and acting positions. For this I paid an up-front fee to set up my photos on their website www.marvelmodels.com. The fee was $595.00. After this I would pay a monthly fee of $19.95 which would only be incurred 3 times for some unknown reason - it has not been billed since... Hmmm. The months billed were August, September, and October. The agency then contacted me back to sign me up for new photos as the ones I had provided were not "good enough" to market me with according to Marvel Models. So they asked me to sign up for a photo session with their photographer. For this I paid a one-time fee of $498.00 on 2/23.
When I showed up for the arranged date of the photoshoot, myself and several other models had arrived and there was no photographer. Fortunately we were able to contact the photographer and set up another appointment. He - however, is unaffiliated with Marvel Models directly, so Marvel was paying him to come in under contract to provide their clients with new photos. We went ahead with a rescheduled shoot and it has now been one month since the rescheduled date and we have not received any pictures (the reshoot was March 20.) I have been unable to reach the contact numbers of Marvel as the company is "moving" according to e-mails sent from an anonymous Yahoo e-mail noted. The numbers are unreachable. I have contacted the vice president of Marvel's cell phone (619) 316-7251 only to leave numerous voice mails with no returned calls (I'm sure that will be disconnected soon!).
The photographer has contacted all the models and has said that he has not yet been paid by Marvel for his services and has been left in the dark as well, being given false addresses, no returned calls, etc. Therefore he is not releasing his work to Marvel as he has not been paid, and the models will be unable to receive copies of the work until he is paid! To this date - April 20 - almost a year now after I signed with Marvel, I have not received ONE job from them that they have promoted me for. They have not fullfilled their side of the contract on ANY level and wish to proceed further with this in a legal field. The sum of money that has been incurred by me to Marvel is a total of $1,152.85 since August.
In other news... Before I knew they had totally taken off with all my money (still naive that I wasn't getting work due to awful pictures...) Kevin Jordan e-mailed all the models that were supposed to be at the photo shoot back in early March that Marvel was moving offices to downtown Chicago... They will be unreachable by phone for a couple of weeks and to e-mail a new e-mail which was a "YAHOO" e-mail not their usual ". Marvelmodels" e-mail. But even e-mails I had sent to their marvel addresses never were answered, not 1!! They always came back as undeliverable!
I hope no one else gets scammed as badly as I did. How gullable am I? In any case, I filed with the Better Business Bureau, we'll see what happens. Also, it so happens one of my fellow ripped off model buddies has a lawyer hubby that will be helping those involved in this photo shoot situation as well as the poor ripped off photographer! The poor guy has both makeup and hairstyle artists to pay for our shoot, but he can't because he hasn't even been paid. These Marvel folks just destroy an entire chain of people don't they??
0 comments