We recently heard from several photographers who received an email from someone claiming to be the creative director of Miami Vibes Magazine, offering to hire them for a fashion shoot. While the detailed creative brief made the project seem legitimate at first glance, my conversation with the real editor-in-chief of Miami Vibes confirmed that it was indeed a hoax. Let’s take a look at the scammer’s pitch and the warning signs to look out for.
Annick Donkers was kind enough to pass along this email that looked suspicious to her:
On 18 Jul 2022, at 12:06, Eric Bonhomme <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello Annick,
Thanks for responding to my inquiry. Please see the attachment for the full job description. I believe the document attached says pretty much everything about the photo shoot. The concept/theme is an outdoor or indoor-urban-business casual fashion photo shoot, shot in a day, edited, and delivered on or before August 26th.
This is a remote gig so you don’t have to make the trip to Florida; we expect you to shoot at your preferred location. The date, time, and planning of the shoot will be determined by you and the talent’s availability. The location is preferably urban outdoors-indoors like the side of buildings, car parks, pathways, etc. and you can use any type of backdrop.
The talent (2 models, MUA, and wardrobe stylist) will be handled by a talent management agency recommended by the sponsor. I already had a chat with her and she quoted $3000 for the 2 models, HMUA, transportation, parking, and refreshments.
The total budget is $7000; you will be paid $4000 and the talent team gets $3000. Usually, we’ll give you the full budget to hire your own team but as this is our first engagement together, we’re recommending the team you’ll be working with.
Here’s how our booking works: You will be paid an advance of $5000 via company check. The advance covers 50% of your fee ($2000) and the talents’ fee ($3000). Your balance ($2000) will be paid within 4 days of completing the shoot.
If you’re okay with that, I can send you a contract today and start working on the budget and the products. Kindly email your name, address, and phone number for the contract.
The modeling agency handling the models and the hairstylist is Gorge Models. You can contact Alyce Barton via email at [email protected].
Kindly let me know if you would like to discuss this further,
Eric Bonhomme
Here’s the creative brief that accompanied that email:
Further Reading:
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