I recently fell victim to the likes of Bruce Romberg and his lackey Melette Anderson.
We just moved to Arizona and felt that our baby was a shoo-in to get into the modeling business, but not being smart we thought to go through Starbiz.
We should have done what the couple did at the first interview, I was playing with my little one when one of the mothers came back after talking to someone and informed me that it cost 600 dollars to do the audition. I was like, "how in the world?"
When my husband came back, we thought no way are they actually getting that much money from all of these people that quick, so we decided to go on.
When we finally went in, it literally took no more than five minutes. We did the call, and were told we'd be called back. And of course, my sweetheart was picked.
I originally thought that asking for that much money upfront was outrageous, but I can say that Melette is good at what she does. She explained that the pictures would be fixed to make them look as good as possible and that they would take about 40 and put them on about 100 discs and send them out. I've known some commercial artists, and I can tell you that they do charge that much to digitally fix photos to make them perfect, so I was like "OK". Stupid me.
Now I'm stuck, we have not gone to the "photo shoot" which we were told my baby would get paid for, nor are we going to go. I am going to try and get my money back anyway possible. I'm emailing the fraud department of Arizona and also sending a copy of the contract that I signed to the Department of Labor.
Also, I found something on the internet that may show just how sneaky, and un-professional bruce romberg really is. I found a website detailing the court case of the state of Florida against a "Ronald Bruce Romberg" who I believe to be the same person in charge of Starbiz.
Here is a link describing the following person and his business partners having to pay over a million dollars in restitution to clients in their business venture in Florida. Hopefully we can do the same to him in Arizona and everyone will get their money back.
Everyone, make sure you keep your records until something has been done, because if you don't have proof of your own that you were scammed by these people, then you WILL NOT get your money back. We can't rely on Starbiz to keep the clients paperwork that have asked for their money back.
Http://www.cftc. Gov/opa/enf95/opamaseri.htm
http://www.cftc. Gov/opa/enf98/opa4210-98.htm
If the website do not show up, then search "Ronald Bruce Romberg" and you will find them. They have to do with a lawsuit in Florida.
Concerning Melette, she is very sweet and after reading what happened the first time she worked with Bruce, I can't imagine why she would have come back. She must really need the money.
I hope that everyone can get their money back in the near future, it just depends on how many people file against him. I wonder if anyone has considered filing a small claims court lawsuit against him? In small claims court, they have a date, you can't bring your lawyer and if someone doesn't show up, then the other person automatically wins. If he does show up, and you tell your story, and you have proof of your story, then you would win automatically.
Because his price is under 700 usually, you can only take him to small claims. I might try this if I don't get my money back from Bruce willingly. When I talked to him he seemed more worried about his problems than ours.
Good luck everyone.
0 comments