We live in wild times. People celebrate social media and easily forget about the down-sides. There are criminals on social media and one currently tries to get models to send him nude casting pictures for a casting he made up.
There is no casting! Do not reply to this fake person. The address he is mailing from is not my email address.
When models asked me, if the casting call was real, I was a bit worried, because with the obviously bad language, poor punctation and even mis-spelling of my name (Smon instead of Simon), you should see directly, these messages are fake. But hoping to get into Playboy makes some models hope for the best. It's good to think positive. But not when receiving casting proposals!
So my advice to models is this:
- Always be suspicious when being promised a job
- When you read famous brands and money being offered, be even more suspicious
- Double check the sender's email address
- Always consult the real person through another channel (e.g. messenger, website contact)
- Never reply until you are 100% sure, it's all real
- NEVER ever send out nude pictures or videos (we never cast like this!)
- Listen to your gut feeling (my general advice for all situations in life)
- (Charge your phone before battery runs empty)
In this specific case, I am a bit surprised that I have reached a level of prominence, I wasn't aware of. I did not know I was so high profile that my name is good for criminals to use. Anyways, just to get this out straight: I was very good in school and I use punctation in my sentences. I also know how to spell my name properly and I don't use gmail but my own server to write emails.