emodel.com, Options Talent Group

Dear Modeling Scams,

Options Talent/eModels are scamming in Durham, NC. They almost got a close friend of mine, but I told her to let me do some research on the company first.

Their website is very nice, but thanks to the NC Film Commission message board for actors, I was able get information about your website that linked to the Better Business Bureau.

They did get the money from one of my friends, but I'm trying to get her money back.

K.S.

Does Options Talent.com have a money-back guarantee? Is that an option? emodel.com had what they called a "unique guarantee." Was it uniquely good or uniquely bad?

Our Unique Guarantee

 

Very few companies in our industry can make guarantees for obvious reasons... they cannot guarantee how successful a particular model may be, or how many jobs a model may work.

 

eModel is unique, however, in standing behind our service of offering models exposure to thousands of the best modeling agencies in the world.

 

eModel Guarantee:

 

If, after being on our site for one year, you are not completely satisfied with any aspect of our service for any reason, we will give you two additional years on the site at absolutely no charge!

What kind of "guarantee" is that? It is not a money-back guarantee. It is not a work guarantee. They did not guarantee models would get work and they did not guarantee models would get their money back if they did not get work.

It really didn't guarantee prospective models anything. It was not a guarantee for models: it was a guarantee for emodel. All it really did was guarantee emodel got to keep the money they were given.

It is funny how they tried to set up their "guarantee" as being special when it was anything but special -- "service" for not one extra month -- but two whole years -- and "at absolutely no charge."

Which is basically how much it cost emodel to put on the picture on their website. When you calculate the cost of one picture on one website that never gets downloaded in one year it is probably very close to "absolutely no charge."

The following message was posted by an ex-scout for emodel.com in reaction to the emodel "guarantee":

If you saw half the so-called models that they sign up and take money from you would be mortified! From overweight people to pimples and braces.

 

They don't care, they will take every person that walks in the door. They are getting the same amount of money from them all.

 

Maybe every once in a while someone might get a job, I don't know. No one ever did while I worked there, but it is seriously a big scam.

 

I was told personally by a franchise owner that this was like AOL: they count on getting that monthly fee. That's how they make their money. They don't care if you are model material, as long as you keep paying them monthly.

 

Then they have this little guarantee. What a joke. If you are not happy with them after a year, guess what?!? You get to keep your picture on the web for a whole year for FREE! Yes, I said for FREE.

 

You're not getting your money back and you're not getting work, and you are probably not model material, but hey... you get to have your picture on the website for a whole year free.

 

Model wannabees and scout wannabees, find somewhere else to go, because this place is a no-win situation all around.

The worst kind of modeling scams are the ones which leave you with nothing. There are modeling photography scams with mandatory photographers, extreme prices, or sub-standard photos, but at least in the end there is a chance you get something out of it you can use at legitimate modeling agencies.

With both modeling conventions and emodel.com type websites which have extreme fees you can end up with absolutely nothing to show for your money. Absolutely nothing.

It is even more sickening when the companies which charge the extreme prices themselves have to pay almost nothing.

Modeling convention organizers have to pay a significant amount of money for the rent of a facility, albeit much less than their total profit, but websites which host pictures pay much less or very little.

Check out the cost of webhosting and you'll get an idea of how little it cost emodel to host one picture on their website for one year.

For example, let's say the webhosting company offers 50 MB of disk space in their annual website hosting plan which costs $240 ($20/mo).

If one picture of an aspiring model is 50KB, the site can have 1,000 pictures. (50 KB = 0.05 MB or 1,000 KB = 1 MB).

Say one aspiring female model is only 5'4" or about the average height of an American woman. Her picture never showed up, it was never downloaded, not even once during a full year, because everyone was looking for industry-standard models, about 5'8" to 5'11."

In the example given, the cost to host that one picture per year that was never downloaded would be: 0.05 MB/50 MB x $240/yr = $0.24. Less than a quarter.

But she paid $495 to sign up, $20 each month ($240) for the year, a total of $735.

The difference/profit margin: $734.76. (735/0.24 = 3,062.5!)

But you have to ask, If the claims of success by emodel.com were in fact true, why didn't they offer a money-back guarantee? They claimed a success rate of 86%.

Any company that claims an 86% success rate but does not offer a money-back guarantee is probably worth avoiding, especially if they cannot and do not prove their claims.

The closer the claimed success rate is to 100%, the greater the guarantee should be. When it gets close to 100%, but there isn't a money-back guarantee, that's a red flag.

A money-back guarantee is a sign a company believes in its product or service. Conversely, if they don't have a money-back guarantee, it is a sign they don't believe in the product/service.

The bottom line:

If they don't believe in their product or service, why should you?

Editor, Modeling Scams.com