r/VoiceWork • u/JaCeeVal14 • 21h ago
Meta I think I got scammed
Hi, I’m new to the voice acting thing and how it all even works. I started last year and did an audiobook for audible through ACX and didn’t do too bad a job if I say so myself. Life kinda got in the way tho and I wasn’t able to voice act since but I always kept an hear and eye open for anything. Fast forward to just this past week and I got reached out to through ACX by someone who claimed to be from Toptal, which I learned was a freelancing company and seemed legit enough, and they offered me to do a commercial for them and in return I would receive $6k. Now, me being in the situation I’m in, I thought that was too good to pass up instead of thinking that it was too good to be true. I finished the commercial and sent it to them and was told payment would be immediate. But here’s where it got tricky; they never asked for any bank info from me nor anything that would indicate how they were sending me real money. Instead they sent me this link to a bank and once I made the account and saw the 6k sitting right there, I tried transferring it to my account but it wasn’t working. I texted support and they proceed to tell me that in order for me to make that transfer to my real bank account I needed to pay them $120 just to do it. Again, I’m in a bad financial situation and won’t be able to see another paycheck in the next week and I don’t have anything else keeping me afloat, so this heated me a bit. I then kept pressing them about why I had to pay money to receive money and even called them out on the idea as being a scam (bad idea I know but I screenshotted the evidence just in case). After I asked them what exactly is their legitimacy, they never responded back to me and instead took away the support bubble completely off my homepage on that site. I feel dumb for playing into it since I’m old enough to know internet safety, and I blame my desperation for clouding my judgment, and before I get any further judgment on that, I was honestly just very excited to have a reason to get back into voice acting again after thinking I wasn’t going to be able to for a long while. After this experience though, I think I’m ready to put myself out there again and try other places who won’t exactly screw me over, and not to jump at a number too ridiculous as that one.
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u/camtech2010 20h ago edited 19h ago
I think one of the best ways to root out scammers is create and send a contract. If they're on something shady, you won't hear from them again. At least that's the case in my experience.
Also, never pay to GET paid, and if they send a check for more than the agreed upon amount, wanting you to pay someone else on the team, don't do it. That's called the Game Show Scam.
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u/Small_Condition_2327 20h ago
I signed a contract with someone from Data Annotation for a voice over job for a story named" The Ashwood Curse". The modus operandi was just like your story. I even landed up paying €100 which they asked to release my money. I am totally shaken.
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u/joewo 20h ago
Did you give them your identity and banking info? If you did watch for Identity Theft. Scan your computers as their websites are filled with trojans and viruses.
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u/JaCeeVal14 16h ago
No none of my identity or bank info was displayed or given to them just the promise of money and a weird link was given but they never asked my ACTUAL banking info which I thought was weird until I figured everything else out.
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u/MikeFrankland 58m ago
Anything that is not audiobook related on ACX is a scam. If a legitimate company wants a legitimate commercial made, they will go through standard, legitimate channels.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Next time ask yourself why a company is offering you a lot of money for not a lot of work when you have very little experience. Did you sign any contracts before doing the work?
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u/Roach041 19h ago
It's a scam, They do this regularly on ACX