Canceling your model contract due to fraud and theft.

It is heard all to often in this despotic industry. Models are getting abused, not paid and having huge swaths of money siphoned out of their checks through many forms of Non Disclosure, fraud, inflated expenses and deductions, secretive low balling of client offers and other racket shilling shenanigans.

Talk to any model in the world, pick your market, and the stories start piling up. Among the list of abusive practices of some agents, or even the “prestigious” agents we have such a laundry list of things to look out for, hold your breath:

• • Late payment, like late late, really really late. Nett 60, nett 90, nett 180, nett 360,
  • Non payment, nett never,
  • Line item expenses, number coded with no label, where you guess what it was,
  • Expense costs which were not disclosed in advance, hence the price is known upon deduction,
  • No definitive and set price lists disclosed of the array of services and their respective costs, the above with no disclosure, or lack of what things will cost later.
  • Inflated services costs the agency provided, such as car rides, pictures, admin fee, apartment dorm rents. Costs which should not really be marked up as much as they are, if at all,
  • Threats of termination if asking to many questions, asking to audit agreements (your death knell here), audit buyout agreements, demanding disclosure, pushing for your payment, asking to audit any kind of receipt, cost deductions, agreement or proof of anything regarding your earnings or costs owed,
  • Exclusivity lock in, despite Agency showing bad faith and no transparency,
  • Sales of Agency services (mentioned above) through the “Company Store Provider” tactic,
  • Fiscal short leash tactic- Keeping the model paid nett 90 days or more and hence broke, in order to keep them in strong conforming compliance with any of the above tactics  as to “not rock the boat” and submit to the status quo backhanded strong-arm tactic,
  • Offers which come to you from the Agent on a gig but is less than what the client offered, hence low balling the model, and pocketing the difference. If the agent knows the model is broke (due to the above tactics and late payments), model is desperate to take any low ball deal to “catch up” on not only their bills but the debts owed to the agency. This is a variant of Shark Lender tactics. Another adjective bundle comes to mind, soft debt slavery.
  • Typical agent fees nowadays range from 10% on the low end going to 20%. I am not even complaining about a 20% agent fee. It is fine. But they charge a booker fee too. 10-20% there. Plus all the stolen money as we are mentioning here, and the agency in question is now racking up some “profits”.
  • Outside deals- cut. Some agencies are requiring in exchange for visa sponsorships that any freelance deals they get outside of the agency the agency get their 10%+ cut. Plus payments need to be sent to them, of course, then the model get their payment, whenever that is!
  • Agencies that run their business model on CREDIT. Credit to the booking clients that is. This kind of business dealing is a slippery slope and can jeopardize any business into bankruptcy due to delinquent debts. Non payment for a job months ago ends up hurting you guessed it, the model. You hear it often ” I am waiting to get paid because the client did not pay yet“. So now a model is acting as loan creditor/labor loaner. What in the actual fuck. Yes, this. When its said out loud any intelligent person who knows common sense would ask how this goes that far…. And the model agency wants to be a banker giving futures contracts to clients. Did they vet the client properly like a bank would to give out loans? Hardly. Model agencies do not have bankers´skills! This is a form of reckless business fallacy and negligence on a huge scale which hurts the workers on the bottom. The little guy. Of course. Like always. Models in these cases act like collateralized debt instruments! Whats next? These job credit contracts going to be traded on Wall Street as LBS´s? (Labor Backed Securities). Akin to the MBS, Mortgage Backed Securities. Ha. We saw in 2008 what the MBS did. Watch the movie The Big Short. Stop and think of it. This is a form of Labor Futures Contracts, where the futures contract is in reverse. On the futures markets we are all familiar with, selling your wheat crop? Put your future delivery for sale on the COMEX, get the money now/soon, deliver later. Here in the model industry it is the opposite, give up the product (labor now), get paid in the future. Like, the way future bro. Running a business on credit is a high risk game.
  • Buyouts! Here is an area where things can go awry.
    • 1. Clients do not pay for buyout and use content. A few get caught and then need to pay up. Most wont be seen.
    • 2. Clients miscalculate and low ball for a buyout. Agent offers it, and broke model of course just takes it in some cases.
    • 3. Buyout money is offered or given to Agent, in either of the above cases, and the Agent just pockets it, or low balls it to model pocketing a cut of it, on top of fees.
    • 4. Agent miscalculates the buyout not following Velma and model misses out on unrealized gains.

Models however do hold some level of “guilt” in allowing aspects of the above. Its called acquiescence. They acquiesce by not only compliance with all this crap, but by staying silent and consenting through not objecting, not asking for disclosure, rates, costs, the “if ands or buts” etc.

The catch 22 then becomes that if you DO ask to much and object to the bad deals dealt to you, the agent will find a reason to dump you and withhold work and simply intimidate you. Chances are they have the leverage and most will use it. DAMMED IF YOU DO, DAMMED IF YOU DON´T. You are out and replaced by the next young one trying to make a name.

How to cancel your model contract if you are being stolen from. Why would a model want to do this?

Some models are so deep in the weeds with debts and running on a hamster wheel of fees, costs, deductions and just can not seem to get ahead. Thus realizing the futile nature of the situation.  A hard exit as will be explained below is a strong roll of the dice to recoup for malfeasance. Or a strategy to roll over to another agency you got waiting in the wings. Hopefully you do that contract right and do not repeat the mistakes again.

Build evidence of several angles, in stealth, before you become vocal and shoot yourself in the foot.

If you are a model and having issues like stated above and know there is fraud, low balling, partial payments etc. what you need to do is demand an audit. When they refuse, this is your first piece of evidence which can be used in a court case, arbitration case or otherwise. There is a term in law called BAD FAITH. You now have cause and corroboration of bad faith with the other party.

What is this concept?

How is bad faith different from breach of contract?

A breach of contract occurs when one party fails to uphold a specific requirement of the contract. A bad faith claim arises when one party acts in an unethical or deceptive manner. Unlike a breach of contract claim, a bad faith claim is not a violation of any specific provision of a contract but rather of the spirit of the agreement itself.

The next piece of evidence you want to collect and prove is the concept of FRAUD.

There can be two angles to approach:

A) from the time of contract signing:

In legal terms, misrepresentation can be defined as a false statement of a material fact, which is made by one party and affects the other party’s decision. Misrepresentation in terms of contract fraud can generally be categorized in one of the three following ways:

• Innocent Misrepresentation: Innocent misrepresentation can occur when the defendant was unaware that their statement was untrue at the time of signing the contract;
• Negligent Misrepresentation: Negligent misrepresentation happens when a statement is false, but the defendant did not attempt to verify the statement as either true or false prior to putting forth the contract; or
• Fraudulent Misrepresentation: Fraudulent misrepresentation can be thought of as the most “blatant” type of contract misrepresentation. The defendant knowingly makes a fraudulent statement for the sole purpose of misleading the plaintiff.

A contract fraud lawsuit is a lawsuit in which the injured party sues the party who is responsible for the misrepresentation. Any sort of contract fraud or misrepresentation would render the contract void; a lawsuit would attempt to compensate the deceived party for their losses resulting from the defendant’s actions.

B) from the angle of fraudulent accounting activities, embezzlement of your money.

If you demand an audit over EVERY contract gig job you have taken, and an audit of every cost and its respective receipt and they fail to comply. You now have probable cause of fraud and embezzlement. Save this info in any way, email, recorded phone calls or meetings etc. This is not yet the smoking gun of evidence you need to pierce the agreement with. This is your lead of corroboration.

All you need is to prove is fraud.

All you need, in theory, depending on the country and laws you have to work with, is one piece of evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the agency defrauded and embezzled any amount of money from you, at any point during the contract.

“Fraud vitiates everything”

Which means, fraud wipes it all out. If you can prove fraud, the contract can be voided. Proving fraud can compel further audits. Hence opening up pandoras box.

What is embezzlement?

Embezzlement refers to a form of white-collar crime in which a person or entity intentionally misappropriates the assets entrusted to them. In this type of fraud, the embezzler attains the assets lawfully and has the right to possess them, but the assets are then used for unintended purposes.

1. Embezzlement is a breach of the fiduciary responsibilities placed upon a person.
2. The embezzler has permission to handle an asset in a certain way, but not to take it.
   
3. Embezzlers might create bills and receipts for activities that did not occur and then use the money paid for personal expenses or simply scalp “fees”.
   

The amount of embezzlement in the modeling agency world is scarily off the f****** charts!

What you need to do is find a lawyer, have the law researched in your jurisdiction and find the angle of attack and start collecting the needed evidence to make a case. A pre suite offer can be made to settle past theft, plus penalties and damages. And a forced audit of all paperwork to determine how much money was in fact stolen. And hence all back pay, owed money paid due and accelerated! If they do not comply you go to court if you can afford it to compel the court to ask for Discovery- this is where the court orders the agent to produce all paperwork and receipts to prove the accounting they claimed to you. This is where things get slippery for the fraudulent agents. They could face criminal charges as well aside from your case.

If the agent has the leverage on you, hence past owed money, or heaven forbid a work visa, they will harness it against  you. That is the whole purpose of all that leverage. To suck you into their debt trap and web of games and tricks. Make no mistake, these are the same gambits the mafia uses to extort a cut out of businesses they have leverage over. Learn how the mafia and yakuza operate rackets and do some comparisons.

But of course, as soon as you initiate to an agent any demands, audits, back pay, threats of suite they will get rid of you fast as hell, and try to get you blacklisted within their city etc. Be prepared. Because it seems like the model agency world acts like another mafia racket. Why is there such a common thread of bull shit in this industry all over the world? No need to come bust your kneecaps in with a baseball bat classic style, they all band together to get you blacklisted from work. Like a street gang. It depends on the city and country you are dealing with of course but there are similar undertones across the sector in terms of intimidating behavior.

We will toot our horn on this subject as we are bringing a whole new system to doing business with booking clients. Is it perfect, no. Not yet. In the years to come we will be improving as we go along. Bringing models a fair trade tool.

Stay vigilant.