My whole experience with Transcontinental Talent has been a sad one.
I am disappointed in myself for actually falling for this nationwide scam and I am very disappointed that people would actually look me in the eye and deceive me. I signed up with this company around October and pretty much threw my money away from the get go.
I was approached in a mall and very flattered that the scout thought I had what it takes. So I called the number on the card, went to the open call in Boston and just like the fifty other people as the open call. I was told that I could really make it in modeling. I bought it forked over my cash and left feeling special.
I was so excited at that time. I thought that this was it; this was my window to be involved in something that I had always dreamed of, to be a model. I was told that the average person involved with TC Talent received at least seven job opportunities a month. Wow! I thought, not only am I going to make my money back but also I am going to make my money back doing something great.
Well those seven opportunities turned out to be bogus promotion jobs like standing in a toy store dressed as Raggedy Ann passing out flyers. Or even worse, these opportunities were nothing more then emails about modeling contests that I had already read about in magazines. I paid all that money to get emails about something the rest of the country knew about anyway. I didnt feel so special anymore.
I have been with Transcontinental Talent for more then six months now and in that time I have not made a single cent with them. I have gotten more headaches from them then I have helpful information. They charge my credit card without authorization from me, they do not answer any my emails and if I call they put me on hold for ages and switch me from one person to the next and often I get accidentally hung up on. Before I paid them they were so persistent and informative. Now it was like I was bothering them.
It was early November when I got the email stating that my pictures had been looked over and that I was chosen to be invited to Transcontinental Talents Orlando Rocks event. I had ignored the email at the time but while fishing around the TC Talent website I decided to look at the information on the trip again. There was an initial contact form to fill out and I then chose a time to receive a phone call from an agent who would tell me more.
In between the time I received the phone call and submitting the form I again changed my mind and decided it wouldnt be for me. I picked up the phone and started to politely refuse the invitation, but the lady on other end made it sound so great. She threw around facts like there were about 800-1100 models that we picked based on your pictures from the whole website and there will be top agents there watching you at every moment she also told me that if I declined tonight there would be no way for me to sign back up because they were running out of room fast.
So I reluctantly gave her my credit card info. When I told her that I was not quite prepared to pay the whole $895.00 in full she then told me that she could do a payment plan, but that would make the trip $995.00 (not including airfare). I thought it was weird but I did it anyway. And so I planned for Florida.
That was in November.By late February I became worried because I had not heard from these people and I hadnt a clue about the itinerary for my trip. So I called. And called. And called and finally got an answer from a rude man who acted like I was bothering him. He told me that he would email me the whole information package today. When I got the email I had expected that it would be some big wealth of information but when I opened it all I got was some scattered, iffy, vague sentences. They said that I would get the whole package when I got to Orlando so they didnt give away all the fabulous surprises that were in store for us. Yeah right.
So March 28th came and I landed at Orlando International. I caught a shuttle to the Rosen Center hotel and lugged my 100-pound bag through the lobby. I got to the registration desk where some smug TC Talent staff asked my name and gave me some food coupons. They told me that I was entered into all three events and pointed to the main Ballroom where I would learn more.
I laughed when they told me I was signed up to sing because I cannot carry a tune for a million bucks but I came down there to model and would give the acting bit a whirl. Again I picked up my 100-pound bag and went to the ballroom. All the while expecting some bellman with wheels to offer to take my bag up to my room. It didnt happen.
In fact the only hotel staff that I encountered were very rude to me, as if they resented all of the talent for being there. So I dragged my bag into the ballroom where they directed me to this desk to get this, and that desk to get that. Then they shoved a script at me, pulled up a chair and made me read some lame detective script with two other people who looked just as confused. They too had their luggage on hand. The whole process took about an hour and a lot of standing in line.
Finally I was told to hike back down to the check in counter at the other end of the hotel and I would get my room. Again it didnt happen.instead another smug TC Talent jerk said he that the hotel was full, pointed to another shuttle bus and said it would take me to another one down the street. Apparently the chosen 800 turned into a cattle call of around 4000 people who had no other qualification then the cold hard cash to go. I was pissed.
I paid a grand to stay in this hotel and not only do they not have room for me but they are going to shuttle me back and forth from the hotel down the street. Whatever. So I get to my hotel room, rapidly unpack, freshen up and sprint back down to the shuttle so I can make it in time to opening ceremonies. I made it.
Opening ceremonies started about a half hour late and consisted of some very nervous model girl who obviously didnt want to be there ranting and raving about how TC Talent made her dreams come true. She said that it was at an event just like ours that she got noticed. Now Im looking around at the packed ballroom and thinking how in the hell am I going to get noticed with 4000 people here. What happened to the 800!!!
She was followed by some bad rap act and finally the big Lou Pearlman got up on the stage. He tossed around names like the Backstreet Boys, NSync and Brittney Spears and made everyone chant, If you can dream it, you can do it! At that time the show got so boring that I left. I was about a mile away from the stage anyway and getting claustrophobic. I didnt miss anything they hadnt smooth talked me into before.
So I went back to my room and my roommate and I decided to look for some fun. Being a 19 year old girl and getting alcohol was not hard to say the least. My roommate and I walked up to a guy at the bar in the main lobby and asked if he would buy for us. We were shocked when he said he was also only 19 and the bartender had not carded him or anyone else. He said hed been drinking there all day. So he and his friend bought us some alcohol and we hung out.
We hung out in the hotel room, by the pool, in the main lobby, in the middle of the street, anywhere we felt like it really. I was worried some TC Talent staff would be regulating things but there wasnt a sole in charge in sight. The place was a zoo! Obviously underage kids were drunk all over the place, and they werent trying to hide it. The hotel staff was fully aware of this and I found it strange that they let such illegal madness go on in their hotel. If I were a guest at the hotel I would have been fuming. And so I returned to my room in the early hours of the morning and crashed.
On Saturday the competition began. I shuttled myself in my Sundays best to the Rosen Center for the breakfast buffet to start my day. When I got there again I was told they ran out of room so I took my food ration to the hallway and ate on the floor. $1,000.00 and I just got off of a bus and I am eating on the floor. I wasnt happy. So I showed up 15 minutes early to my modeling call time only to find a huge line of models standing patiently for their 30 seconds on the runway. So I stood there for a bit, but after almost an hour of watching the so called judges looking very uninterested in anyone or anything I decided I rather have my spinal health then my 30 seconds of fame.
I left and no one tried to stop me. I was very sad with the whole experience. Taking my cue from the modeling competition I thought the acting part would be just as unsatisfying and decided just to hop back on the shuttle to my hotel. Once again my roommate and I headed out to find someone to buy for us. We had had a bad day and wanted to have some fun. Again, not a problem in sight as we purchased the alcohol, and again the place was a madhouse.
TC Talent was sponsoring a pool party for us at the Rosen Center so we went to check it out at around 11:00 pm. This is where the shuttle comes in again. At the Rosen Center I was amused to see that this hotel was more of a joke then my own and had a blast at the party. I was a little worried though because they had a bar set up by the pool and there were some very drunk people swimming around. There was also no lifeguard in sight. The pool party got old fast and we went back to our hotel.
As soon as the hotel door shut there was a knock on it and I cautiously opened up. There stood a man in uniform (security I guessed) who said he noticed us in the hall and pulled out some cards. He asked us if we were models and then told us how the cards were from his brothers agency called Impact Talent Management. He also noted that the CEO on the card, Rafael J. Rios, was one of our judges and if we called him it might help us out in the competition. He said he was instructed to look around the event and only offer these precious cards to people he felt could really make it in the business. I think he thought his gesture would have dazzled us with flattery because he seemed as if he was waiting to be invited in. That wasnt happening so I shut and locked the door and my roommate and I called it a night.
Sunday morning was a tough one. We had to be out of the room by 11:00 and that was not easy hung over. We shuttled our massive bags back down to the hotel and made a beeline for the luggage check. Our flights did not leave until much later that night so we had from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm to find something to do with our luggage and ourselves.
The luggage check flatly informed us that there was no room left and pretty much told us to leave. So we did and I politely asked one of the TC Talent staff if she knew where I could keep it. She suggested the luggage check. I told her it was full and asked if maybe I could throw my bag behind her desk and leave it there. (It would have been in no way in her way) That was a no go. She was obviously busy counting all the money they made off of me to give a girl a break. So I dragged my bag back through the hotel to get breakfast. Again I ate on the floor but this time it was in the company of my good old suitcase as well. I felt like a homeless person and what was worse I was treated like one.
I did however have some interesting conversations with some other talent who were anxious to leave this horrible experience. A nice girl from Texas told me that her rear end had been groped by one of the agents while she was out by the pool. Apparently her friendly conversation was misinterpreted as a sexual advance towards him. Another girl was so heated that her face was beat red when she was telling me about what she encountered at a club the night before. She had gotten in good with some slime ball judge at the bar and he was bragging about how
Transcontinental Talent paid for his and the other judges entire weekend and referred to it as a drunkfest. It all made sense when I thought back about how bored the judges looked during the runway competition. It wasnt that they were bored; it was that they were hung over! Overall the whole weekend was a bust, I did not meet a single person who thought they had gotten what they paid $1000.00 for. It broke my heart to see so many young, beautiful faces so disappointed and so hurt. Even when people were partying at night somehow every conversation I walked into had something to do with the Transcontinental talent scam and how mad they were that they fell for it. So I pulled out a book and waited for my extremely expensive vacation to finally come to an end. My shuttle came and I got back home safe and sound. I was excited to eat on a table and not have to catch the bus to make it to dinner. I was home.
All in all I feel like I paid a whole lot of money for a whole lot of broken promises. I wasnt in the hotel I paid for, I was served off of the ground like an animal and not one of the so-called judges approached me. I did however get some cards (all of which I promptly trashed) and weak hand shakes from what I am sure were wannabe, scummy agents looking to rob me.
It is really hard for a 19 year old girl to come up with the $1,300.00 in total that I did and even harder to realize that I was scammed and my dream of being a model crushed. And I am positive that the other 4000 people there feel the same way. I didnt talk to everyone there but I did talk to a lot and I didnt hear one good thing being said about the company. I am so surprised it is still up and running at this point. I met some pretty pissed off people in Orlando this weekend but I am sure we are not the first or the last to get scammed by these people.
CJ
Boston, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
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