Hi Paul!
I appreciate what you have written here. Let me address somethings for you to be clear:

1. When I said other websites, I meant the ones you mentioned, Taji, and other casting sites. Unfortunately, as 'we' compete to find you work, we cannot appear in the same web content. That is just business. I will tell you, compared to 3 years ago ... there has been a drastic change. I did try to coordinate an effort once. Not everyone accepted. The idea may have been ahead of its time at that moment.

2. Regarding my comment on PR Moves: The reason I called the move 'cheesy' is because acting like one company will completely stop this and therefore, no one should worry, and just audition, leads to more problems. What if people begin to think, 'Well, I know it looks bad, but the site tells me its ok.' That is not taking responsibility. If someone is vigilant enough, they will catch those not paying attention. I have a history with fraud investigating, and family in NYPD. I just know you have to accept that the element exists. Afraid to admit it? I think you have seen we are not, and we have not had a problem in a long time. Even still, the moment you stop worrying, someone takes advantage of you. You are a business and have to be aware of it.

3. Responsibility goes across the board. These websites are not agents; they are marketing services and job placement sites that give you the control to decide to deal with whomever you wish.

We do our best to keep the scammers off, but remember: or all we do, because you are 'online', anyone can find you and offer you work just because they find you on a website first.

We happen to know that on Voice123, 6% of our premium database makes a high 5-figure to 6-figure salary from our site.

Why? Repeat business.

Where did it come from? Knowing who to audition for, and who to avoid.

And out of that, those 6% paid $295, and no one at this site saw any commission.

My point: We all have to take responsibility, and be familiar with the new work environment; not impose what we think it should be based on offline ideals. That is how many web companies fail, and we are all businesses.

A side note - to give you an example:

The Newspaper job really touched us when the job was posted, and being someone who did that kind of work, I was happy to see it. We had discussions and researched the issue, but what he did afterward simply shocked us. We have no control over such things, but the situation was upsetting.

As for what we reveal, you notice that I write a great deal. I do so because I want this to be as transparent as possible, and I write a great deal about it on Voice123, and hold webinars about it. The answers are there.

Many, many thanks for this in-depth follow-up! Too often we read a story that makes the headlines for a few hours. After that, it's on to the next big thing and that's the last we'll ever hear about it. John, once again you have proven to be a more than worthy recipient of the Community Award!

Thanks also to the companies you interviewed, for addressing the issue of fraud. One of the perils of conducting business online is that - by default - it is highly impersonal. It might seem that we're connected in the digital world, but in fact, the people behind demand and supply are quite disconnected. This can make it quite challenging to separate the good from the bad and the ugly.

As my experience with Newspapers for the Blind has shown, even when things get more personal, there's always a chance that we'll be running into someone who seems to have a very different definition of integrity, to put it mildly.

Speaking of that specific case, Steven Lowell and the rest of the Voice123 team went out of their way to help the talent involved resolve the situation to the best of their abilities. All other organizations that were contacted (such as the BBB), didn't deem it worthy of a response, not even after repeated requests.

After reading the responses from the online casting services, here's what still worries me:

1. COORDINATION
It is a known fact that scammers, once exposed, set up shop somewhere else. Why aren't voice casting sites working together, exchanging information about scams and scammers? Instead, they have left it to a voice-over colleague in Egypt, Mahmoud Taji, to post scam alerts. Only Steven Lowell states: "I communicate with other websites." However, those "other sites" could be sites like www.ripoffreport.com, instead of other voice casting sites.

2. COMMUNICATION
All sites handle cases of fraud - as Scott Lumley put it, on an "individual basis, but not formally" and only with the parties concerned. It is left to individual members or e.g. VoiceOverXtra to notify the community of known scams and scammers. Lowell: "(...) notifying members that you found a scam is a cheesy PR move to install a false sense of security."
- Wouldn't knowing that a site has spotted a scammer and has taken action install a sense of trust and security?
- If these sites are so intent on preventing fraud, I'd think that the more people are alerted, the harder it will be for a scammer to use the same dirty tricks somewhere else.
- Or are these sites afraid that admitting that a scammer has slipped through their net will generate bad publicity and undermine trust?

3. RESPONSIBILITY
All respondents stress that members of their site should use common sense and take the time to do their own research. That doesn't answer this question: who is ultimately liable when things go wrong? A few observations:

- Members are paying voice casting sites a considerable amount of money to offer reliable services, worthy of their trust. Isn't it primarily the responsibility of those sites to provide their members with leads that have been screened thoroughly? (Voices.com automatically approves some job postings submitted to their site, however not all jobs are automatically approved).

- Running a freelance business is very time-consuming. Often, voice actors do multiple auditions a day. For many, these auditions are a race against the clock. Competition is fierce and nobody wants to be talent number 88 to submit an audition. Is it reasonable to expect that members should spend a considerable amount of time doing an extensive background check on a voice-seeker, before they get to the actual audition? Perhaps we should all become private eyes instead of a VO-pros!

- Professional musicians often work for contractors. The contractor is the middle-man connecting demand and supply. The contractor collects the money and pays the artist. For these services, the contractor takes a percentage of the agreed fee. Sounds familiar? Here’s the thing: guess who’s liable when things go wrong? Could the contractor get away with it, by blaming the artist for not playing detective? Absolutely not.

In short, VoiceOverXtra has once again brought to light that we are in serious need of more coordination, communication and accountability. Members of online voice casting sites pay to play, and not to run the risk of being exposed to the games of a con artist.