Too Many Scams in VO

Happy Sunday! I am writing this post from my phone at Haneda airport in Japan, so please excuse any odd mistakes on the grammar and spelling; between me fat fingering and the keyboard creating fake words, I’m liable to miss something in editing. You’re probably wondering why I’m halfway across the world instead of at home continuing to work on my goals. The answer to that is: a much needed vacation booked and paid for 9 months ago. Seeing the world is very much still in line with my life goals, just not necessarily my career goals. Next week I’ll write about my trip, but for now (for safety because I’m not publicly announcing my itinerary) I want to cover a topic that has been a headache.

As I hope we are all familiar with, the growth of the internet the last 30 years has brought an increase of scams. Just a couple months ago my grandfather almost got scammed by some fake crypto bros. I bring this up because there is a shocking number of scam artists out there targeting voice actors, musicians, models – if it is in a creative field, a scam exists. Why people think it is a good idea to scam folks who notoriously aren’t overly wealthy is beyond me. Perhaps they believe artsy folks are more gullible. Certainly the handful that go into these fields acting like it is a get rich quick scheme might fall for such things, but those who are in it for the craft? It’s a frustrating reality of day to day operations.

I may not be fully active on ACX, for example, but I frequently get scammy messages on there. What I’ve noticed is they tend to follow a pattern. You specifically aren’t addressed (generalized message). They want you to contact them on Telegram or Gmail. Maybe it even skips that step and tries to build a rapport by complementing your samples.

That last type can be tricky if you aren’t judicious. The message will likely be poorly formatted. A book title will be given, but no link to the book. If you Google it, that book may exist, but the person (or more likely bot) messaging isn’t the actual rights holder. One strategy to suss this out if you’re uncertain is to respond with a few questions along side giving a quote range for the genre/length noting it is dependent on the exact specifications. When they reply to you the questions won’t be answered and they will at some point request you to send them money in the guise of releasing your pay or covering the cost of cover art due to your rates taking up their budget.

Whatever you do, NEVER send a potential client money. In fact, you should be enforcing a 25-50% down payment. For audiobooks it is suggested this fee be taken after a 15 minute quality check. This check is used to ensure you are following the client's desires and that you’re not going to be completely stiffed. Don’t continue work until you get an approval and your money – that will only waste your time if there are issues with your name pronunciations, for example. This is where you can have a built in exit for both you and the author if either of you think it isn’t a good fit. Preferably the only reason a narrator would have to exit is if it turns out the author can’t hold up their end of the contract. I was going to give a screenshot of the emails for a good example, but unfortunately the image upload isn't working right from my phone. Instead, please view my related TikTok to see a small breakdown.

All unfortunate circumstances aside, this field can be great for the right person. Just make sure you’re vigilant and don’t expect to start making hundreds of thousands in your first year.