Vital Red Flags on Working with an Agency for a Model

If you're a regular follower and reader you'd know my thoughts on modeling agencies. The vast majority of them are scams, unethical business practices, and heck even doing illegal business practices even in some states. Here are some tips and red flags to know when finding and working with a modeling agency. Granted I'm no model, and I'm a photographer who never experienced this but this is information based on the research I've done on all agencies, and experiences of professional agency fashion models such as YOANNA HOUSE, which some is mentioned on this creativeLIVE course here which I highly recommend watching!

Red Flag: [SCAM] Any upfront costs asked by the agency. Such as some I've seen myself are

• Audition Fees
• Application Fees
• Require in-house Photography only
• Require in-house modeling classes only

This is the biggest red flags when going to an apparent very questionable "agency". I would steer clear of them as much as possible because their business model is to make money off you paying them which in reality is WRONG! A real agency's business model is to work WITH the model as a tool to work with corporations/businesses to work on advertising campaigns or promotional events and they get a cut of what they pay you. 

Red Flag: [SCAM & SAFETY] Online Presence

A real agency's online presence will be taken seriously. If you see something like a WIX platform website or something very outdated like it was designed in the 90s... RUN! That is the best choice honestly because they may be worse than just a scam it can be very dangerous situation you're putting yourself in if you do meet up or go to their address. Even if they got 1 million likes on facebook or 2 million followers on instagram or twitter, these numbers can be easily faked and bought. A website is what a serious company invests into. Also a similar tip to do is google the company's name. See how many results you get good, bad and the ugly results of that company will show up generally. If you don't get any results that's another RED FLAG.