The Ashwood Curse - A Voice Over Scam, and how to avoid others like it

There is a popular Voice Over scam making the rounds right now. It’s one that professional VO Artists (like me) already know about. But now, the scammers, who have exhausted the websites of pro VOs, are targeting UGC Creators.

Pro VOs can spot the red flags in this scam a mile away. But newbies to VO, and/or UGC Creators, who aren’t familiar with the VO industry, easily fall prey to it.

THE SCAM AND THE RED FLAGS

A)        The scammer approaches you, via your website/email/platform, and butters you up. They tell you they love your voice, you have exactly the tone they have been searching for, and they want you to work on a Voice Over Narration job titled The Ashwood Curse. (I have also seen it called The Lost City of Eldarath.) They may even say you submitted an audition to them on a platform like Backstage.

RED FLAG 1: A quick search will show that The Ashwood Curse already exists in audiobook format… so why do they need your Narration?

RED FLAG 2: Are you a pro VO Artist with a professional recording space and samples/demos of broadcast quality files on your website? And no, your UGC video “voice overs” are NOT the same thing. Sorry, but not even close. (More on that later… )

RED FLAG 3: An audition? What audition? Do you remember submitting this?

B)        They also share details of the job. Stating that they want to use it for a “conference presentation.” They list the length as being around 4000 words and 20 pages. They share details/directions about the tone and mood they need and recording specs required. The rate is $2000. The delivery timeline is X.

RED FLAG 4: A Conference Presentation? What business conference have you ever heard of that requires the long-form narration of a fictional horror story? And one that already exists in audiobook format? Are they creating a visual/video presentation? Why isn’t that mentioned? Why isn’t the industry or company name of the actual conference mentioned?

RED FLAG 5: Voice Overs are priced by word count/video length + usage. That’s it. And the usage here would be “Event Usage” or maybe “Trade Show Usage”. And those usage terms usually correspond to video, and the length of the actual video would factor in. Listing the “page numbers” is amateur, as all we need to do is change a font to make a document any amount of pages we want it to be. No legit VO job would have this detail.

RED FLAG 6: The listing of adjectives for direction and tone, as well as recording specs are meant to trick you into thinking this is legit. But a legit offer would be more likely to reference a specific demo you posted which matched the style they need. And unless you are a top VO Pro, they would likely also request to hear a sample of you reading their script… not jump immediately into a job offer and contract they are eager for you to sign.

RED FLAG 7: The rate. You may think to yourself, “well, finally I am getting some good money offers!”. It’s enough to excite you into WANTING this to be a legit deal. So you are much more likely to dismiss the red flags you don’t want to admit you’ve already suspected. (In truth, this rate would be adequate for audiobook usage, but for live event usage, it’s lower range. 4000 words of long-form content is, well, LONG. If you aren’t a seasoned VO, it’s going to take you a lot longer than you think it will.) Also, most legit companies would inquire about your rates, not simply state a rate.

RED FLAG 8: The delivery timeline. These scammers always put a very weird number like “99 hours” or “2 days” for this delivery. (99 hours is just bizarre, and 2 days is way too fast and would definitely be considered a rush delivery, requiring a rush fee.)

RED FLAG 9: The contract is being presented to you with no discussion/questions/negotiations. They are just THAT eager to hire a person they’ve never even conversed with or worked with before, who has very little (or no) experience in the VO industry.

There are other glaring red flags here to note.

The scammers use different names, different company names. Sometimes they misspell these same names/words in the same email/document they sent you. (Example, the contact’s name may be “Simon”, but then on the next page, it’s “Simeon.”) Maybe they are using a generic gmail email address instead of a proper company email. When you search the supposed company name, it may exist, but not in the same city they claim to be from, or it’s not a company that seems like it would need this type of service.

PLEASE NOTE:

ChatGPT may tell you this is a legit offer!! Why? Because the scammers used it to write that contract. All the contract details sound somewhat legit, and they used a name of an existing company. So what is ChatGPT supposed to flag? All these red flags I named are dependent on knowledge of the VO industry and human nuance.

SO WHAT’S THE SCAM?

Well, for one, you are going to do this work, and you will never be paid. They will either ghost you, or tell you the audio wasn’t approved. And what is their end game?

Maybe it’s got something to do with AI training. But it’s even more likely that these scammers were actually scammed themselves by a bigger scammer, who sold them this blueprint for The Ashwood Curse scam, with instructions on how they should scam Creators, steal their audio content, and then sell that audio to AI companies.

Or maybe they are going to start phishing for your personal info… maybe they are going to refuse your first delivery, tell you that they need to send you to a pro studio to record, and send you a check for you to cash and pay for the studio fee. That’s another classic VO scam (The Game Show Advert Scam), where they ask for a refund be sent to them since they “accidentally” overpaid you, and then the original check bounces after you’ve already sent the scammer their “refund.”

WHY ARE THEY TARGETING YOU?

Maybe you have listed the words “voice over” somewhere in your website/on a platform. They’ve already exhausted all the legit VOs out there who are more savvy to this kind of thing, and now there is a plethora of UGC Creators rapidly joining the marketplace who are wide open for a scam.

BUT KITTY, I DO VOICE OVER all the time in UGC! Aren’t I a VOICE OVER ARTIST??? Sorry, Love, but you aren’t. You may have the most fabulous voice on the planet, and know how to edit your UGC videos so they play with a “voice over style.” But audio recorded on a phone, or even a USB-style microphone, like a Blue Yeti, is not going to be of the same quality as audio that was recorded in a sound-treated recording space on a professional microphone designed for VO. And that’s just the start. A VO Artist then takes that recording, and can edit and master it to meet a variety of specs needed for radio, audiobooks, etc… They do that using software and equipment that differs from UGC (and costs a lot more $$) that they’ve been trained to use. And that just scratches the surface.

Want to learn more about being a Voice Over Artist?

Start here: https://www.kittyjayvoice.com/post/how-to-become-a-voice-over-artist-part-one