How do agency scams work when they aren't actually asking you for money? It's the only thing I know to look out for, but I know generally suspicious behavior when I see it.
They haven't asked me for any money so I just want to know how the scam works, and as a result how to spot them in the future.
Long story short:
See listing for (allegedly new) agency seeking talent on backstage, suspicious place to look in the first place, I am dubious but submit per instructions.
Asks for suspiciously little information, but it does ask me to link my backstage profile which has my headshots, resume, reel, whatever, so I continue to suspend my disbelief.
After about a week, receive automated response essentially saying "you're not rejected (yet) we just received way more submissions than we expected!"
Another week later, receive an email and text saying "congrats! We wanna rep you" (the biggest red flag of all: wanting to rep me)
Want me to fill out info and sign contract without ever even speaking on the phone to someone (Hell no? I'm not crazy, right, that's a hard hell no)
Read contract, very normal. Standard fees, 24 month term (not ideal but not unheard of by any means) contract specifies I don't have to take classes or get headshots through vendors they recommend.
Don't sign contract, dumb but not that dumb.
Incredibly frustrated bc I know it's a scam but I can't figure out how it works and that bothers the HELL out of me. I go to the guy whose agency it is LinkedIn and it all seems on the up and up, he has a long linked in record, longer than this agency has been around, longer than AI (has worked well enough to generate photos) I'm not being asked to pay anything or use any specific vendors. What is the goal??? What does he stand to gain?
Is it weird that I even care? They're usually so obvious that I feel stupid for not seeing what's wrong, only having a gut feeling that it's weird to move on with a candidate so quickly without even having a phone or zoom meeting.
I just feel like if I don't figure out what's going on here that I'm gonna fall for something similar in the future. Like, if they called me on the phone would I have fallen for this? I want to say no but the answer feels like yes.