Stage readers enlisted in war on up-front rogues

Published Tuesday 11 April 2006 at 12:05 by Nuala Calvi

Stage readers are being called on by the government to help stamp out bogus and unscrupulous casting agencies, by taking part in our nationwide survey to uncover the truth about up-front fees.

Department of Trade and Industry officials say they receive a “steady stream” of complaints about companies which offer glamorous assignments to aspiring actors and extras who pay hundreds of pounds to feature in casting directories - but then make no effort to find them work.

The government has now decided to review the laws covering agency fees and is considering making it illegal to charge on the spot deposits at casting events. Another option being looked at is a cooling off period during which people could demand their money back if they believe they have been scammed by a bogus casting agent.

John Thorpe, DTI employment agency services officer, said: “We get a steady flow of people who say they’ve been charged for registering with an agency and clearly a certain amount of hard sell is going on. There have been a number of cases where agencies have been claiming to have contacts with popular programmes and people are paying them a lot of money - £180 is a sum often quoted - and nothing is happening. The agency purporting to be looking for performers is actually just engaged in a fee-collecting service and there’s no intention of getting people work.”

One casting agency, Hidden Faces, was found by the Advertising Standards Authority to have misled the public by suggesting it could get people extras jobs on EastEnders even though it was not on the BBC’s approved agencies list.

Up-front registration fees were banned in 2004 but agencies can still charge for photographs to be taken or to include people in their casting directories. One of the options being considered in the consultation is to make it illegal for the take-up of such services to be a condition of registration.

Clive Hurst, a campaigner on up-front fees and a member of Equity’s walk-on committee, said that tighter laws were needed. “The regulations that came out in 2004 promised to ban all up-front fees and did not do so - the same problems have actually increased vastly since the legislation came in. I believe 70% of all up-front fees are bogus in one form or another,” he added.

Bectu national official Spencer MacDonald said another problem was that the law only said such fees had to be “reasonable” but did not define what that meant.

“We’ve had examples of people being charged £250 - that can’t be reasonable,” he explained. “We actually don’t believe there is a need for directories for extras, because if producers want 500 people for a crowd scene they are not going to pick them out individually.”

According to Equity, agents operating within best practice guidelines will take any costs for such services out of artists’ first pay cheques rather than demanding money in advance. However, an outright ban on up-front fees could hit legitimate directory services such as Spotlight and CastNet.

Marcus Collingbourne, Stage advertisement and events manager, said that he was aware of such problems and worked hard with the ASA to combat unscrupulous organisations. He added: “Whenever we have come across such organisations, we have then taken subsequent action and have indeed refused to carry adverts we feel may be misleading to our readers.”

The DTI is trying to gauge the extent of the problem with exploitative agencies and and is supporting our survey to find out your experiences of signing up with an acting or extras agency. The results of The Stage’s survey will help the government introduce better protection to vulnerable people who come into contact with unscrupulous agents in the future.