Advice required: poss OT

[philk]

A friend has been approached over the net by a guy claiming to be from a company which provides editiorial stories for top womens magazines and has suggested she could earn ?500 by selling her story to one of the magazines (she is 6ft 3") - I am suspicious!

It seems ok on the surface but has anyone else ever had any experience or contact with a James Conroy from Stratford upon Avon trading as JJ Features? The whois details from his website are below - any advice gratefully recieved.

[jjfeatures.co.uk = whois.nic.uk] Domain Name:
jjfeatures.co.uk
Registrant:
James Conroy
Registrant's Address:
Partridge Road
Stratford-Upon-Avon
CV37 9FQ
GB
Registrant's Agent:
Schlund + Partner AG [Tag = SCHLUND]
URL: http://registrar.schlund.info
Relevant Dates:
Registered on: 09-Jan-2004
Renewal Date: 09-Jan-2006
Last updated: 12-Jan-2004
Registration Status:
Registered until renewal date.
Name servers listed in order:
ns25.schlund.de 195.20.224.114
ns26.schlund.de 212.227.123.20
WHOIS database last updated at 23:30:01 20-Apr-2004
--
(c) Nominet UK 1996 - 2004
For further information and terms of use please see http://www.nic.uk/whois
Nominet reserves the right to withhold access to this service at any time.

Thanks

Jason

[jj]

.......you can imagine MY feelings on the topic ;-o)

[Cosine]

A couple of points:

1. as said mags do pay for stories, and if it's a harmless 'interest piece/my story' kind of thing then I'd say go for it. But, if it relates to sex, then as I'm sure you're aware, it may be sensationalised/distorted; and could on a slow day be picked up by a tabloid womens page. Has she any feelings on this?

2. If you're more concerned about JJFeatures then I'd suggest contacting some of the magazines listed on the website and seeing what they have to say.

Cheers, Mike.

[golostruda]

I don't get what the hell you are "suspicious" of. How do you think women's mags get their features? I used to write features for Just17, Sky, etc, which involved finding friends of friends with an interesting angle on something - the same as "JJ Features" (which is presumably just one bloke) seem to be doing. The ?500 figure for her story seems a little high (it was more like ?150 when I did it, but that was ten years ago, so who knows).

[philk]

Im suspicious because some random guy contacts an absolutely gorgeous girl on a dating site online and says he would like her to meet up with him and do a story and some pictures and he will pay her 500 quid - wouldnt it ring any alarm bells with you? On the surface he has no credentials other than a website which looks like it cost 20 quid and you dont reckon its cause to at the very least be cautious?

Have advised her to call the magazines and ask for references as advised.

Jason

[golostruda]

OK, that's extra information that wasn't in your original post. The taking pictures bit seems a bit odd. The magazines always sent their own photographer in my day and I'm sure they still do. Why would the journalist be taking their own pictures? It does smell a bit dodgy (a spin on "I run a model agency"). From your original post it just sounded like he'd been trying to find a woman who was really tall for a story, and had been tipped off about your mate via a friend of a friend or whatever. That happens all the time and is how journalists work. Trawling internet dating sites is a whole different matter...

[golostruda]

Even if there's nothing dodgy about him he sounds pretty amateurish, making the likelihood of his placing a story (and getting your mate some money) heavily odds against.

[philk]

Thats my thoughts but she is a young and poor student who only really sees the money - some of it could be her picking it up wrong from him (like the photographs, maybe he meant the magazine doing them but didnt make it clear) and the guy could be completely genuine but I been around too long to take things at face value.

I did kinda mention he had contacted her over the net in my first post but I guess it was only half the information given in the second one! Anyways have told her ask him for contacts at the magazines and have offered to go along to any meets she does with him just to make sure its 100% genuine so lets see what he says now.

Jason

[philk]

Theres potentially a hell of a lot more to worry about than just being ripped off financially - this guy could be anyone for all she knows and she could end up in a situation which she cant get herself out of and maybe even get hurt hence my concern.

Jason