As an ex-employee of the WSN, TCT, Options, E-model lunacy, allow me to clue you in on exactly how sick the people at the helm are.
I too was personally familiar with Mike Fromkin. He and 100% of the rest of the disenfranchised former owners in the WSN / TCT blowout really knew absolutly nothing about the industry, just as the guy from New Jersey mentions in his multiple posts. No one in the modeling industry sits in the front of a room and blabs about nonesense that he dated or knew personally a supermodel with his arms propped on his fat stomach.
Even worse, this A. Defrawri, aka. Alec... The best way to describe him is an "evil genius". He built this scam from 2 people in a room making phone calls to unsuspecting victims to the point where it had 100s of offices with scouts just funnelling in the poor saps to pay $1000 to post their pictures online to get exposure. Its difficult to describe briefly, but from what I saw first hand, he was an absolute mastermind. Brilliant at figuring out new and creative ways to continue to convince employees and potential "talent" alike that the company wasn't a scam and that all of the things you read online and saw on the news were simply because we were "misunderstood".
When the company went public, incidentally, although we were all asked to sign confidentiality agreements and etc. That prohibited insider trading, we were advised that (not a true quote) "the famous Lou Perlman, owner of Transcontinental Airlines and the maker of the backstreet boys will be our new chairman... That should tell you what you need to do" basically implying that we should buy stock cheap for a fast profit.
(a fellow ex employee lost their shirt because the stock ended up at less than $0.10 a share only a year after they purchased $1000 worth at $20 a share).
I personally have knowledge of the former lives of other certain former franchisees, whose careers included, respecively:
- marketing in the liquor industry
- being an administrative assistant in a Boston office building
- other entirely unrelated fields... Not even remotely close
These people are simply all knowing in one key area: mind games.
You see, the company did have one thing it knew how to do. Manipulate people. The corporation hired the franchisees to run their offices for 2 reasons:
1) it allowed them to defer the risk onto the franchisees of getting bagged for the scam
2) the franchisees were taught to make their employees part of their family - to mainpulate people into believing they cared about them by taking care of them at just the right moments
So the franchisees would do things like paying for dinner and drinks constantly, to stay on your good side, while you worked the program and allowed them to make, at one point, over $600 per "model" scammed. (while you, even if you were an office director, were lucky to make $50)
The worst part of this is that at one point, all of us were so engrained with the idea that we were really just "different" from the rest of the industry and we really weren't scamming people, that we were actually able to defend against accusations by DATELINE NBC. We could actually, in our own minds and the minds of others, convince people that something obviously as scam, was not.
That, my friends, is lunacy.
I've since completely disassociated myself from the industry.
All of these people are obviously very intelligent to be able to continue to pull the wool over so many "would be model's" eyes that they can make enough money to keep this going. Its insane if you ask me.
The government - why do you people think they'll step in. This is small potatoes to them... Unfortunatley, to those who get scammed, it's not.
The guy from new jersey was right... The loud techno music, the fashion show videos on the TV screen... Its all designed to make you feel isolated in the room as you wait and listen to their "office director". (I know... I was one that helped develop that idea. And it worked... All too well.)
If you've been a victim, trust me... Those of us who were involved feel worse than you could ever possibly imagine. Those of us with a conscience, anyways.
The closest I've ever been to a cult... in fact, I'd go so far as to say it WAS a cult. A cult of pure manipulation.
0 comments