Scouting Entertainment Group/ segstudio.com - Francois Maalouf Creative Director/ Manager/ Talent Agent... Rip Off is more like it! Hollywood California

I was hired by Hollywood Casting to set appointments for new talent. After a little while I began to gain inside info into who they were before. Seg Studio! They have opened up shop again, and have begun to scam money from people under this new name. They have the "Talent Director's assistant's" call former potential clients from Francois' personal stash of profiles from Seg. The other "talent Director" Robert Macias, Started Explore Talent.com. He sold that company for many of the same reasons. These people are convincing, and professional at one thing. Getting your money. I am sorry to everyone that I help bring them. Extremely sorry to those that gave them money. Spread the word! They know what to say to get your money. They don't even have proper space for the appointment setters. They put them in either a small room in the back with no windows(same room used for the photo shoots), or a closet, and sometimes unused offices temporarily. They only pay them $8.00 per hour, and promise bonuses that are unreachable. Payroll checks have bounced because of there being no money, and they don't apply both signatures at times, so they can't cash their checks only deposit. Employees have been shorted money, and they make them sit on old, dirty, broken chairs for an eight hour shift. They are NOT listed on the BBB, and use the employees for pretty much any task they don't want to perform. They provide tons of snacks, but Francois mixes some of them with his bare hands. The snacks are left in containers until stale, and left accessible to all children and employees to consume at will. Unsanitary in my opinion. All around, this company is crap! Don't give them money, don't work with them or for them! Look them up, Seg Studio, and Go Hollywood Casting. Also look at the frightening similarity between Seg Studio's website and gohollywoodcasting.com's website. Most of the exact same layout, and wording is used for the home pages. Dead giveaway.


Sincerely,
Anonymous616

To Whom It May Concern:

Concerning the letter written from Daniel to the Rip off Report. We have read this letter and feel bad that someone has misunderstood what exactly we do here. Everything that we offer to the customer is told to them up front. Daniel heard what we do and without trying our company out has labeled us a rip off. She mentioned in the letter that she did not pay us a dime and did not sign a contract with us. Therefore, she is not even a customer of ours. It is very hard for us to defend ourselves to someone who is not even a customer.

We don't claim to make movie stars here we just give our clients the tools to get started in the industry. For example the clients are given a photo shoot a video shoot, we create a web page for them to host the pictures and video, and any other information that they would like to add, a calendar that is filled with jobs, we also have a hotline that our clients can call and get help with any issue. We have many clients and I'm sure that they are totally satisfied due to the fact that we are in touch with them day-to-day, setting up showcases, ect. In addition, we do supply everything that is told to them in the initial meetings.

Once again I don't really know how to defend our company against someone who is not even a client of ours. Daniel sat down, listened to what we had to say and exercised the right not to buy. She claims we did not impress her in the way she wanted so she decided to take the time to write a letter bashing our company without trying our service, and then said we were doing business illegally. We would love to know what it is that we are doing illegally. We at SEG Studio are in full compliance of the law.

Many of our clients are currently doing well at their new careers that we helped get them started in. We are currently maintaining a high volume of clientele that are very satisfied and successful with the service that we provide.

Sincerely,

Francois Maalouf

I'm just posting this info to warn people of the company and the new talent agency scam of paying a set up fee for a web site/profile and then paying a monthly maintenance fee too!

Also want to advise people to check the www.bbb.org and to post something on Rip-off Report.com as well!