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Scams happen in every walk of life, every industry, all over the place. Even in the voiceover world. Sometimes there are auditions that seem a little off or a questionable email comes your way looking to hire you for a gig that requires you to go to a local studio. I just went through one myself. But the question is...what is it ACTUALLY a scam?

Here's what happened.

I responded to a job that was posted on ahabtalent.com. Now, Ahab is a division of Penguin Books, one of the biggest book publishers in the world. Ahab is kind of their audiobook talent booking/auditioning website. As far as I know, anyone can post their book to be narrated on Ahab which made this job posting a little weird from the get go. The job had a script that wasn't for an audiobook job but for some sort of video that talked about a resort. Uummmm. So I auditioned. They liked what I did and pretty much, without barely saying the standard 'hi. we liked your read and would like to talk to you about moving forward.....' they jumped right in with the 'the client would like to record this Thursday at about 11am.

Considering how that Thursday was Thanksgiving I instantly knew it was an international client. That said, I hit them up with a 'before we jump into bed, I need to know what the budget and usage is.' They responded with a ridiculously low number. I said 'too low.' They came back to say that the client can go up to a number about 4 times that low number. After finding out what the usage was (TV? video for company? youtube?) I gave them a much higher number (a fair one!) to which they said the client can do that higher number. Great. Orrrr, maybe not. You see, this whole time there's some things that are tripping in my head that tell me 'maybe this isn't legit.' Here's what made me kind of suspicious.

  1. The fact that they posted this job on an audiobook casting site was kind of weird.
  2. They immediately wanted to go right to the recording session without sending me a SOW (Scale of Work) contract/explainer.
  3. When I asked them to send one they said, 'yes, we'll get you one here soon.' But never did.
  4. I couldn't find their company on LinkedIn. Nor could I find either of the two individuals I had communicated with. They (company) DO have a facebook site though!
  5. The guy I was talking to regarding scheduling is listed as a music artist on their recording side. Which is fine but why not mention in his bio that he also works on the audio production side of your company as well.
  6. Before setting up the recording session, they asked me for my payment/invoice info. Not TOO unusual but usually clients aren't so willing to 'carry the water' for getting you paid.
  7. Though they volunteered it, they have a business address and business ID # in Canada even thought they're a company out of Mexico. When I googled the Canadian address it showed basically a hair salon and a mailbox store. I'm guessing this address is solely for tax purposes. When I asked them (in a separate email) why the duality they said, "We are based in Mexico City. But are linked to Vancouver, Canada through our counterside PYL Corp for international projects."

What made me think they were legit...

  1. They had audio samples of work on their audio production side.
  2. When I asked them to punch up an actual 'offer' through the Ahab site, they did that. Was THIS what they considered the SOW?
  3. When asked for payment/invoice info I asked them if we could wait on that until AFTER the recording session. To which they said, 'of course.' My thinking there is if they were looking to scam they wouldn't sit through an hour/2 hour recording session first. So there's that.
  4. And that's it.

The red flags outweighed the green ones. After consulting with the wife and ultimately my agent we all agree to take a pass on this one as it all sounded too weird and questionable. I cancelled with them the day before our scheduled session. 'Why? This is very unprofessional.' was their response. I replied with nothing. Moving on.

In one of the voice over forums, a seasoned VO guy said that one of his clients is out of Brazil and that sometimes international clients work a little differently. They're a little more relaxed with stuff. Brazil client sets up stuff with him, apparently, through the WhatsApp app. I read that and immediately started to feel bad. Look, they might have been good people and totally on the up-and-up but I just couldn't ignore that voice in my head.

Do you think it was legit or was this a failed attempt to dupe me outta some money?

Monday December 12th, 2022
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