First of all, let me start by saying my wife and I decided to pursue some modeling and the like for our daughter for purely fun purposes for her. My wife is a stay-at-home wife/mother, and I am lucky enough to provide for our family with my career.
My wife was contacted by "Deb" at Flashcast, while making some inquiries online. And to cut to the chase, we had an appointment made on a Sunday. We arrived, and right away I did feel a bit of cheap glamour with the place, with all of the lights, pictures, etc., it was easily overdone. We were then put in a back room with more pictures, lights, cameras, etc. where we waited for our appointment. I had some thoughts telling me to get out of here, but my wife was so excited for our daughter that I held it in.
We were moved around some more and had a few brief meetings, and of course we heard nothing but how glamorous our daughter was, etc., then moved around some more.
To end this encounter, the last office we were put in, we were sorta double-teamed by Carl himself, and Deb, and was reassured countless times about our daughter was going to do great. The popped the question to us, asking us if we wanted this for our daughter. My wife was excited and told them she was, then followed a stack of papers. They kept her mighty busy with more compliments and questions and fake interest, to keep her from reading all of their safety net legal stuff and small print. After signing away her life, she was asked for her identification and credit card for "verification purposes". He left with the credit card, all but snatching it from my wife's hand with her ID. He arrived back in the room complaining he couldn't get the charges to go through completely, so he was able to get a bigger portion through.
Now, when he left the room, my wife turned to me and asked me if he's going to charge us for something. I wasn't sure and Deb started with explaining what he was doing, that yes in fact he was charging us. My wife looked at me confused, and at that moment Carl came back and complained that he could only get so much on the card, and he needed more money from us. At this point, I wanted to leave to regroup with my wife and talk about this, as I wasn't aware of any charges taking place and my wife, who would always tell me, said nothing beforehand.
A bit later, after leaving the office and talking with my wife, we definitely felt scum all over us. We had been slimed. Immediately we both jumped on our computers and found literally enough complaints, public records, etc. all over the place that my wife got sick. We got on the phone with our bank, and I even confered with a lawyer. Unfortunately my wife signed a reciept. She did so under duress and felt she had too at that point, but alas it was too late. She signed it and they had a copy. So when we tried to get our money back, it was near useless unless we take them to court.
Thankfully I make enough money to move on and chalk it up to a lesson learned. Hopefully things like this report and others experience will reach people before they're sucked in.
Because of the nature of their business, they can say anything they want, and blame their lack of performance and unfulfilled promises on the industry, your child, etc., and hide behind their small print. There's so much more I could say, but I feel like I've already wasted enough of my time on this lame.
DON'T BE A SUCKER.
Ken
winnetka, California
U.S.A.