The entire glittering glamour world may be difficult to resist. A shot of your face splashed larger than lifestyle on a billboard or an exciting position in a TV commercial can novel-ishly turn around your life. You suddenly end up a semi-movie star, your fan following on social media dramatically increases, and your friends start seeing you in a brand-new light. To get to the point where this will show up, all you need is that one fortunate spoil — but when you have no clue a way to get it, and the desperation doesn’t go away, be cautious of your next step.
Some gullible modeling aspirants are falling into traps set by using easy-speak, social media-savvy racketeers. Their sufferers are commonly starry-eyed and unwell-informed, often from small cities and determined to make it huge. Most haven’t heard the saying: “If a suggestion looks too exact to be actual, it likely is.”
IT’S JUST SO EASY TO CON
Without a regulatory frame for modeling groups, it’s clean for con artists to cheat the new hopefuls. Even once they’re fleeced, the aspiring models don’t approach law enforcement officials, fearing harassment and mocking. For them, expertise comes too late and at a rather excessive price.
Fashion photographer Bijoy Raghavan explains the rip-off: “Shopkeepers or belongings agents fake to be modeling agents or photographers. They choose different people’s paintings and bypass them as their own. Abroad, you have regulatory bodies, which include MAMA (Managers And Models Association). There’s no such frame in India, which makes it easy for racketeers to function.”
In their initial days, these younger human beings have minimal guidance in phrases of expert steering. “Racketeers trap them in the name of getting them paintings, take the cash, and vanish. In many cases, the scammers literally close down their workplace and run away,” says Raghavan.
YOU DON’T NEED A CARD to paint as a model!
One of the pink flags is the point out of a modeling card; any agent who talks about it is far a fraudster. Fake businesses let you know to pay for a version/artist card. They also ask for registration/club prices that would be anywhere between ₹2,000 and ₹50,000. Genuine modeling corporations do not ask for any advance costs. They take a percentage of your payment once you get a few paintings.
Fashion photographer Praveen Bhatt says, “There’s no such thing as a registration rate for modeling. Also, you don’t require a model card. This is a rip-off. I’m afraid I have to disagree that human beings can fall for it. There can be no such thing as a version card because there is no permitted body in India to use one of these cards. Also, by no means pay cash to someone who ensures your figure. Nobody can assure work in this subject.”
PAID AUDITIONS? REALLY?
The fake businesses also ask models to pay for auditions. It’s now not just the metros wherein such mock hearings are held. At the circumstance of anonymity, a 25-year-old from Roorkee, Uttarakhand, was referred to as modeling co-ordinator, approached him on Facebook, offering to get him a spoil. An audition was held in a cramped, rented corridor in a rundown locality, for which the ‘co-ordinator’ charged ₹500 in keeping with an individual.
