We got sucked into their company because of a baby expo in Tinley Park. There was an advertisement about a baby photo competition for Family Time Magazine. We paid $20 for the entry fee and then after that we could go to their office and pick up a cd of the pics.
We went to this expo in Sept. 06. I finally went downtown May 6,07 to look at the pics. I asked if my son had what it takes to get into modeling. They of course said yes. But they also said not all kids have what it takes for them to even offer the test pics. I called my wife to see if it was ok to spend the $85 for the test pics, she said ok. This meeting was with Jay Esquis. They said to return in about a week to review the pics with them.
We returned and had a meeting with Gail Spangler. She reviewed the pics with us and told us that her and a group of other people get together every Friday to review the cd's from the week (which was about 96 cds that week). She said my son's cd was the only one they asked to see twice. She then stated that Glamour wanted to compile a portfolio for my son. They would pick up a majority of the cost for the pics. We were told we just had to pay $125 per pose, with 3 poses being taken, and that this was only about 10% of what the whole portfolio cost... Ie Glamour was picking up 90% of the cost. We said ok. We were so excited that our son was accepted and that they said only about 5% of the test shots get through for a portfolio opportunity.
We had the portfolio pics taken on 2 seperate days 9-16-07 and 9-23-07. Then we were brought back in about 10 days later to review the pics. Gail was not there that day but Jay Esquis reviewed the pics with us. We looked at all the test shots... About 110 per pose. We picked out the pics w/Jay. After we left picking out the pics my wife got a weird feeling about the whole process b/c when we sat down to look at the pics we sorta felt like Jay should have told us what pics should be in the portfolio, since they were the professionals... But we did most of the picking.
We were told that the portfolio would be ready on 10-23-07. We never heard from anyone. So I started calling them. First thing was Gail was never returning our calls. And when I finally got a hold of her she told me there was a huge delay at the processing studio that they use. So they took the pics to another processing studio. We finally got the pics in early Dec (i do not have the exact date.)
We were told by Gail that they would contact us if she finds any modeling opportunites for my son.
Over the past two weeks my wife has tried calling them three times to see if there was any kind of input on our son from possible jobs. She was always told that "Gail was not in the office today" or that "Gail was at lunch". My wife left a message each time but has never recieved a call back. My wife did some searching on the net about them the past few nites and found this site about the problems another person had with them. I am feeling like we were taken by them just like the other person said. I believe we will never see any work for him from them.
I should have seen the red flag when there were no pics in their office of their clients on any ads or magazine covers, just like the other person said. There were just photographs of people. These photos could have been of anyone.
We will be contacting the Village of Tinley Park about this situation and also the editors of Family Time Magazine.
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