Fraudulent Claims of Being a Published Photographer / Model etc

There has been a upsurge in the claims of being published Photographer / Model. This is often alluding to being published in Print Magazines.
REALITY:
  • 100% lies – Never been published in a Magazine – Gets away with it as no one bothers to check (see how you can check / validate below – further down)
  • Their image has been featured in a Facebook Page of an entity claiming to be Magazine – BUT with NO online Magazine or Print Magazine in existence – just a Facebook page!
  • They crop the image of checkable evidence and never refer to magazine name or issue date.
  • The so called magazine / book is something they have produced and published etc through numerous platforms available to do that.
  • Literally steal other peoples images and claim it to be theirs, in the magazine – VERY COMMON.
  • Claiming images in a Magazine as theirs when it is not – another VERY COMMON Practice.
  • They will never publish copies of these so called published images with sufficient evidence / means to validate their claims.
  • Latest Scam (credit to an Ebolla of an Indian Photographer) that publishes an album of images (including magazine cover image that is not his and unpublished images of his) under the banner of “Published Images” – faking the cover image as his, claiming numerous published images (when reality is only 2 or so) etc.
How to Check:
  • Ask for Link to Publication if online.
  • Ask for link to publication if purchasable / print.
  • If print – as to view a photo of the photo in the magazine (don’t accept the old – I never bothered to buy it or I have misplaced the magazine line)
  • Seek evidence of email trail to show that the said publication did actually publish.
  • Contact Magazine and Validate.
Why?:
  • I recently saw a advert by a travelling salesman with a camera claiming to be published in multiple magazines and this advert being pushed by a new (not yet published) magazine claiming the guy was published. – FACT – Two of the so called Magazines were online Magazines. The third didn’t have a web site publication nor had ever been published in print!
  • Easy way to get into the game.
  • No one bothers to check and actually check and validate their claims.
  • TFP Groups are were these Photographers Prey.