The entire of the glittering glamour world may be difficult to resist. A shot of your face splashed larger than lifestyles on a billboard or an exciting position in a TV commercial can novel-ishly turn round 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 mild. 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 but 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 of them haven’t heard the saying: “If a suggestion looks too exact to be actual, it likely is.”
IT’S JUST SO EASY TO CON

In the absence of 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 mock. For them, expertise comes too late, and at a rather excessive price.
Explaining the rip-off, fashion photographer Bijoy Raghavan says, “Shopkeepers or belongings agents fake to be modeling agents or photographers. They choose up different people’s paintings and bypass them off 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 the minimal guide 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 paintings as a model!
One of the pink flags is the point out of a modeling card; any agent who talks about it’s 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 in advance costs. They take a percent 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 can’t agree with 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 difficulty 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 fake hearings are held. A 25-year-old from Roorkee, Uttarakhand, at the circumstance of anonymity, stocks that a so-referred to as modeling co-ordinator approached him on Facebook, offering to get him a spoil. An audition changed into held in a cramped, rented corridor in a rundown locality, for which the ‘co-ordinator’ charged ₹500 in keeping with an individual.