E=MC2 – Jobsearch #2

I’ve added another name to my list of scammers and hucksters today. Experienced another cynical attempt to extract money from the hapless, hopeful and helpless. I’m going to align myself with the hopeful, and invent a Crappola Detector.

The Crappola Detector © is as real as the job I was offered today. But if it did exist, my wasted time this afternoon would have been put to better use. Like applying for a job that actually existed. Or adding five hundred words to my Novel.

Instead there’s a great gaping hole full of wasted energy.

I’m hooked-up to quite a few Job Sites, including Gumtree. And it’s Gumtree that sends me more of the casual and part-time jobs. And because the cost of advertising is low, the site attracts Crappola merchants by the ton. And it attracts suckers like me, who have nothing to loose but their dignity.

Amongst the photographers seeking life models and the free psychic readings, was a company looking for film extras. The ad gave a film title and Director’s name, and a shooting schedule in May. But the real honey-trap was a £90 a day fee. I was suckered and mailed them with my details.

Mistake Number One: I forgot to check out the film title and Director. A simple Google search (done after the event) produced nothing except links to the Gumtree ad.

Mistake Number Two: I replied with my real e-mail address. Now the hucksters have this and will no doubt have filed it under sucker.

Their first mistake was to respond too quickly, their second was to offer me an immediate booking for the larger fee of £100 a day. All I had to do was pay a £20 registration fee – mistake number three.

I’m sure a Crappola Detector would now be registering a pile suitable for a family of dung beetles.

A visit to the company’s website revealed one of those identikit templates favoured by scammers. And for a business described as an employment agency, there was no way for potential clients to view their roster of talent. People who work in the film business have a hundred and one methods of finding actors/extras and crew; they will not use a site that supposedly keeps their people behind an invisible password protected link. Stupidly they also claim the impossible; their site can actually distinguish between a potential clients IP address and a casual browser. Rubbish.


So the website is terrible, what about the address. Street view reveals a shabby suburban semi. So a company that claims to act as an employment agency for film cast and crew and also produces films has no office. Strange.

I Googled the principle person involved with the company, this person has a laughably fake web page. A myspace full of Glamour Model friends and also claims to be a film producer as well as a bit part actor. He also claims to be illiterate, be in his early twenties and you’ve guessed it have a roster of Glamour Models at his beck and call.

Now any sensible person would just give up, dust themselves down and put the whole experience down to experience. But I’m hooked, the Boy Mogul, who goes by a couple of names has got me interested.

I check the properties of their word document, which was created by the mogul himself, but it has another company name as the owner. I also Google his alias, the name of the person supposedly representing me, the name registration fee cheques are made out to. Films are big bucks, but this piddling company only deals in cheques. Scam.

Google leads me to Facebook, Facebook to some petty criminal’s page. The meathead has been abandoned by his pregnant girlfriend and spends a fair proportion of his day moaning about this. Looks like she left him because he’s just out of jail. Public enemy number one lives in one of those Sixties New Towns, I waste far too much of my time perusing his sorry life.

Google also leads me a site called www.ukscreen.com , this contains a synopsis of the Boy Mogul’s previous film – he’s the writer, director and Star. And the three other principles, yes you’ve guessed it are Glamour Models.

I waste some more time on www.ukscreen.com, its comic. My favourite entry is for a Kenneth Gawne, apparently a film producer. But he’s one of those film producers who can’t write or do maths. Here he is describing his film :

The film has been shot in both in 3 countries on two continents - we began shooting in the Californian desert, continued in Paris and concluded filming in Scotland this summer. The cast and crew has been an international mix of people from California, Ohio, France, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. So despite working on an exceedingly small budget (basically the film was funded on student loans and cost around £5,000 in total) we have ended up with a professional looking final product


I ‘m sure the travel costs were more than that exceedingly small budget, but I’m also sure it’s about as real as Boy Moguls film career.

My Crappola Detector is now registering off the scale. It’s quite easy to map out these peoples fake identities, Facebook, Myspace, a couple of domains, a couple of fake websites, and some fake entries on a couple of dodgy film sites. And no imdb entry, funny. The James Fox line, I don’t think I can let you stay in the film business – springs to mind. The one sampled by Big Audio Dynamite in their song E=MC2.

But I’m out of time; my daughter needs to be collected from school. And I have to leave the fabulous world of the pretend film business.