The reason I created this site and article is because hollywoodprofiles.com aka castingandtalent.com aka MovieForums.org ripped me off and I decided to investigate these guys and the further I would dig the more I realized this is a total scam committing interstate fraud!
HERE IS WHY:
1. They send spam email and have many complaints online regarding this illegal practice, here are just a few:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080404185220AA6dzs3
http://mycrapmail.blogspot.com/2008/03/casting-calls-in-your-area-anyobject.html
http://spamnation.info/go/domain/hollywoodprofiles.com
2. They do not disclose that the “risk free” trial will turn into a $49.95 charge after the 7 days. This is a screenshot from their payment page which does not clearly indicate that this is a membership and that you will be billed $49.95. You may not know this but by them not CLEARLY disclosing their fees they are clearly using deceptive business practices and bait & switch techniques, both of which are illegal.
FTC Guidelines for advertising this type of offer require that all terms and conditions of the offer, as well as cancellation instructions, be clearly and conspicuously displayed in at least 10 point type before asking for payment or obtaining the customer’s consent. Clearly hollywoodprofiles.com is in violation of FTC Guidelines, they do not disclose clearly at all!!
3. They do not have 6,000 9,000 Industry Professionals using their site like their ad claims, instead they steal castings from free sites and most of the auditions I contacted told me they never even heard of hollywoodprofiles before. This constitutes false advertising and Pinnacle along with Elon Cohan can be held liable for this fraudulent act.
4. The United States Casting Society (http://uscastingsociety.org) which rates hollywoodprofiles with an “AAA” rating is also owned by Ilan Cohan the owner of hollywoodprofiles.com. This is a clear conflict of interest and this company was created to lure and fool users into thinking this company is accredited in the industry.
http://whois.domaintools.com/uscastingsociety.org
5. They advertise jobs that do not exist when signing up. The show they have a number of jobs in places like Kansas, after you sign up you realize nothing is listed for that area.
6. They claim in their user guide that they invented online submission which is also a lie. Most talent sites I use including exploretalent.com had that first. They also claim to have a patent pending probably just another lie, all this company does is lies, cheats, & their main goal is to TAKE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY
7. Rip Off Reports – When you search google for “site:www.ripoffreport.com hollywoodprofiles” it will show you all the reports on hollywoodprofiles.com that are a stagerring 255 results all added within the last 3 months. Thats a huge number, I wonder how many have not complained they must have stolen $49.95 from thousands of actors and models.
8. BBB- The Better Business Bureau has rated them with a F and has this to say regarding hollywoodprofiles.com: “We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.”
HERE IS WHAT YOU DO TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK & DO YOUR PART TO SHUT THEIR DOORS FOR GOOD:
Hollwoodprofiles.com aka castingandtalent.com aka MovieForums.org is an illegal scam operation committing federal mail fraud by scamming unsuspecting job seekers, actors, models and movie extras. If you have been a victim of this scam you can report hollywoodprofiles.com aka castingandtalent.com aka MovieForums.org to:
****Call your credit card company or bank(VERY IMPORTANT), since this is a scam you can get all your money back. File a “chargeback” and give them a link to this website so they can see the findings of my investigation. You will surely get your money back and hopefully Visa & Mastercard will eventually ban these criminals.
1. Complaints – Call Mark Lambert, Deputy City Attorney, or Elizabeth Calles, Detective: (213) 978-8070
2. Attorney General
Texas
https://www.oag.state.tx.us/forms/cpd/form.php
California
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL
New York
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/complaints/complaints.html
Florida
http://myfloridalegal.com/Contact.nsf/Contact?OpenForm&Section=Economic_Crimes
3. Contact http://ripoffreport.com and file a complaint. http://ripoffreport.com will accumulate these complaints and when there is enough of them a class action attorney will see this and file a class action against the owners of hollywoodprofiles.com which is Ilan Cohan and Pinnacle Systems which Ilan is hiding behind, at that point hopefully they will be able to pierce his corporation and hold him personally liable for the fraud he is committing.
4. Contact http://bbb.org and file a complaint. The media watches for high complaint volume and will eventually do an undercover report and expose these guys on TV.
5. Report them to the FBI, since this is interstate mail fraud this is also a federal matter which is handled by the FBI. To file a complaint with the internet crime complaint division of the FBI click here: http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/
6. Report them to their domain registrar which in this case is godaddy.com, here is a link to the page you need to report them if you have received spam from them : https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/spamreport/spamreport.asp
7. Repost this information on blogs and forums to help others before they are defrauded. If you have an extra $20 bucks you can even pay for google adwords with a link to this site, that would be sure to get this blog more attention and stop hollywoodprofiles.com from scamming others.
Shame on you Ilan Cohan and shame on you to all the staff at Pinnacle Systems. Please do the right thing and repost this in as many places as you can and also write comments about this below so it indexes well and do your part to stop these criminals!
Also if you work for Pinnacle Systems AKA Ilan Cohan, beware you are also liable for the fraud that is occurring and may be subject to jail time once the authorities are in your office investigating your practices. As an employee you to can do the right thing and post what you know and report your boss (Ilan Cohan) to the
California Attorney General (http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL)
and to the
FBI internet crime division: http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/
DO YOUR PART TO STOP THE HOLLYWOODPROFILES.COM SCAM
