VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

Spacegypsy · Guest

As a VO talent at V123, I also advertised once as looking for talent.
Because of that. I also receive talent seeekers email.
I am Mad as Hell after receiving this email:

Beginning of email:

Keep Voice123 as Your Dirty Little Secret (sent to krosatixxxnyc.rr.com)

Hello Katrina,

Did you know you can send talents' answer demos to your own clients without letting them know you received them through Voice123?

Sometimes talents allow you to download their answer demos to your computer. When that is not an option, you need to have another alternative to let your own clients listen to voice talents' demos and select a voice for their project.

Voice123 allows you to send a link to your clients to let them hear talents' answer demos you have received through Voice123. When retrieving answers to you your postings, click on Show Details and you will find the public link that you can use. Just copy, paste it, and send it to your client. You have a different link for each and every different answer. The link won't reveal that the demo actually comes from Voice123 as it uses a different domain name.

We hope you take full advantage of this feature to help your clients get the best professional voice overs. If you have any suggestions or comments you want to share about this feature, you can visit the Voice123 Blog (http://voice123.com/blog/B1003.html).

For any additional questions or comments please click here (http://voice123.com/web/common/contact_us.cgi) to contact us, call us at 1.877.275.8642, or click here to chat live with us.

Sincerely,

The Voice123 Team
Voice123 - The voice over marketplace
Toll Free from the US: 1.877.ASK.VOICE
New York & International: (+1) 646.825.9005
www.voice123.com

To me, the whole idea that Voice123 is promoting itself as a "dirty little secret" is obscene to me. This is what I wrote back to them:

As a talent on Voice123, I strongly object to this tactic.
I am not a "dirty little secret" and this really sucks!
I will definitely not renew after thisVERY BAD CALL!

End of Email...

(My edit - the above email bounced back to me, so I wrote two other emails instead, one to Alex and one to Voice123 support)

So, that's the skinny.

Frankly, I do not want anything in my life with that energy.
If that is the way they are promoting themselves, and therefore voice talent, I am really offended and this is NOT fun!

I hope that other Voice123 members will join me in letting them know this is NOT acceptable

Gregory Best · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject: mee too!!

I was just coming here to post it also. How low can they go???

Greg

Spacegypsy · Guest

Please, any V123 members on this list, please express to them this is NOT acceptable! We can complain about it here, but THEY need to know, it is US that pays them money, NOT the client, and they are taking the piss BIG STYLE! I cannot even tell you how mad I am about this. Us, the voice talent, fill their coffers and they are treating us so badly... Argh!

Spacegypsy · Guest

Best bet is to direct your thoughts on this to Alex Torrenegra, who invented Voice123 and who I met at the exhibition where I was kindly a voice talent for free on their behalf:
Alex Torrenegra [alex@voice123.com]

donrandall · Guest

I got suckered in and paid for a membership - now expired. I haven't renewed because I have only picked up a relatively small amount of work through them - then again, I didn't see that it made sense to audition for everything that came along, either. I get the periodic email from them, wanting me to sign up for another year and because I did come out ahead, it is tempting. At the same time, I can't convince myself that it makes sense to get lost in a crowd of three or four hundred others who flood every client with auditions. I suspect that many - and probably most - clients listen about eight or ten deep and the rest are just wasting time and bandwidth.

It looks to me as though they really don't care all that much whether you or I or anyone else actually benefits from affiliating ourselves with them - they do care about getting that membership fee.

Gregory Best · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:05 am Post subject: V123

I emailed Alex too.

Greg

Deirdre · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:25 am Post subject:

Dirty little secret, indeed.
It certainly qualifies as a WTF in terms of marketing on THEIR part, but I wonder--- does it matter how you're heard as long as you're heard?

It does make it all the more important to watermark or otherwise protect any demos you make for/thru those guys.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com

Spacegypsy · Guest

It really does matter to me how I am represented.
It's the whole idea that Voice123 are encouraging clients to think that way.
So yes, I really do care about this.
There are a hundred ways they could have got this idea across to the client, without resorting to promoting a negative buy.

I am sure this would have some clients feeling a little squeamish about V123 too.

Hart · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:50 am Post subject:

I got that email too. I've signed up for the "free" account with them just to poke around. The more I see and the more I hear people say about it, I really have to question whether it's worth plunking down the cash for the full monty.
_________________
Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

anthonyVO · 14th Avenue Joined: 09 Aug 2005 Posts: 1470 Location: NYC

I don't see anything wrong with this.
I think their subject line of "dirty little secret" is tongue-in-cheek.
Additionally, if I were casting a project and auditioning several v/o's on my client's behalf, I don't want my client to know my source -it would cut me out of the loop.

In the "real world" I'm called in to casting directors via my agent to audition for commercials. When the casting director sends my audition to the client (for example, Santa Fe Salsa), they don't send my representation info attached to the audition - it all comes from the casting director. This is the same thing.

There is nothing that voice123 can do at this point that would upset or disappoint me since I have no expectations of them whatsoever.

Spacegypsy · Guest

Well, I am still fuming about it. If I fork out bucks, I have expectations.

Alex did write to me today, and was most apologetic if I found it offensive.
I appreciate that, and yet I am still angry.

I'll cool off I dare say, and it has quite taken me by surprise that this got my goat so much when in general not much phases me these day.s.

VO-Guy · Guest

Dan-O · The Gates of Troy Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 1638

I think it's the word "dirty" that's causing all the ruckus. It implies that you are getting away slyly with something. My interpretation: Don’t let your clients know they can get the same talent without your 500% mark-up.

Philip Banks · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:46 am Post subject:

I've seen some things in my time and heard of several more but this really does take the biscuit. Are there not laws to prevent such outrages? The behaviour is positively vile.

On the other hand we could see Voice123 as it should be seen. Largely insignificant as is its impact on the real voice over market. give credit where credit is due and the aforementioned site is due none. It is a waste of space and those who have received work or found good voices using it have been subject to a degree of good luck, nothing more.