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These companies advertise for talent with ads that imply that by responding you will have started on your road to stardom. If you answer an ad, they will often tell you outright that they will help you obtain acting or modeling employment. The catch is that everyone who responds needs lessons or training to go before a camera or down a runway, they say. This training is really what these companies are selling, and their courses can obligate you for thousands of dollars. In reality, they cannot guarantee you employment, and you will not find such a guarantee in their written contract.

California law requires any company that procures or offers to procure employment or auditions, or that provides artist management services, direction or counseling to develop an artist's career, for any of which they collect a fee in advance to post a $10,000 bond. This law also prohibits charging for such services as; registering or listing the artist for employment, providing photographs, videotapes, other promotional materials, costumes, lessons or training, or auditions. The law also contains certain requirements of advance-fee talent services and prohibitions against certain practices. If the company promises you auditions or employment, or if they even ask you for a fee in advance, a talent service is considered to come under the provisions of this law. Under the law, they are not allowed to charge you, for example, to provide photographs, filmstrips, audition tapes or videotapes, lessons or training.

By law, you are entitled to a refund of anything you pay to an advance-fee talent agency if you do not receive the services you were led to believe would be performed. The refund is to be made with 48 hours of your request for it. Additionally, you have the right to cancel your contract with the agency for any reason within 10 business days of the date of the contract. If you cancel, your payment is to be returned within 10 business days. If your written contract does not inform you of your right to a refund or to cancel, you may demand your refund or cancel your contract at any time, without regard to these time limits. If your money is not returned within the 48 hours or 10 days, respectively, the company is required to refund double your money. Despite the law’s protections, if you are not dealing with a reputable talent service, you may find it difficult to enforce your rights.