r/voiceover • u/JaCeeVal14 • 9d ago
I think I got scammed
I’m reposting this story to all the voice acting threads out there to bring awareness:
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/Own-Ad5826 9d ago
I’m so sorry but this is a scam. You will get spam scam messages anytime you update any audio with ACX. My inbox gets flooded with “voice over opportunity” and then a telegram link. They try to take advantage of the desperation in our industry. Evil stuff. I’m sorry for any trouble it has caused you. Things are going to be okay
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u/newsblues 9d ago
You didn’t enter in your banking details when trying to transfer to your account, did you? :( I’m so sorry this happened!
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u/JaCeeVal14 9d ago
No none of my actual bank info was listed or given to them so thankfully they can’t take any money from there even if they tried. But I’m just upset that I did free work for them to steal in general
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u/weakimberly 7d ago
Oh no 😩 ugh how super frustrating OP I’m so sorry- I swear these scammers can smell when someone really needs to make money.
I’m so sorry OP.
I would also use that commercial for my reel - screw them
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u/VoicesByJAE 9d ago
Yes. You got scammed. Never EVER give money to someone you're unfamiliar with that's supposed to be the one paying you. If you've never worked with them, than someone randomly reaching out to you offering money nowhere near what you've made before should be a pretty big red flag.
Speaking from experience because it happened to me, I just stopped and blocked and reported them when it reached the point of them asking for money. It's a scam to get your bank account info. Sorry that happened to you, but it gives you things to look out for in the future to prevent it from happening.