In the back of Popular Mechanics, I have seen ads for a company called Phototek. Basically, they promise to pay you for taking pictures at home ($268.20/roll, to be exact). They charge a $47 registration fee, and they don’t give the details of their system until you pay. Obviously, this sounds like the perfect setup for a scam.
Does anyone know the truth behind Phototek?
I don’t know anything whatsoever about that deal but it does remind me of another one (not involving photography) where the company found reasons to reject most of the material sent to them. I suspect that most of the rolls sent in would be found to be unacceptable by this company, too.
Yeah you posted the same question a month ago. http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003099.html
Accept that it’s a scam and get over it. Not to sound cliched, but if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Period.
A coworker of mine tried to pick up some extra money by doing something along the same lines.
The deal in his case was,he bought a kit of electronic parts from the company,assembled the kits and then the company would buy them back if they passed inspection.
None did.
Peace
t lion
Why don’t you send Phototek your money and then let us all know how it works out.
Here’s the URL for their site:
(active link deleted - Nickrz)
Needless to say, the information contained therein may not be 100% “objective”, but it’s a start if you’re interested.
[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]
Hmm… I’d been looking for the thread I started before, but I couldn’t find it, even with the search engine.
That sounds like a likely explanation, but if that’s all it was, they’d have no reason to keep their process secret (except the part about “rejecting” everything). I checked out their site (my previous thread has a link to it), and they made it clear that they weren’t going to reveal any details unless you register. They obviously have something to hide about the process itself.
GQ Mod for The Straight Dope
A professional photographer makes about $20-25,00 a year. At your $286/roll figure, that would work out to less than 2 rolls a week. What makes you think they’d seek out amateur photographers with no experience to photograph something, when they could hire a pro for less?
You’ve gotta be pessimistic about these types of offers and recognize the flaws inherent in advertisements’ logic, or else, like I said i n the previous thread regarding this, your eyes will cloud up with dollar signs, and you will invite yourself to get ripped off.
err I meant to say a professional photographer makes $20,000-25,000/year.
Nickrz: Main reason I posted the URL was that RoboDude had stated that the company doesn’t “give the details of their system until you pay”. One obvious way to find out more was to go on the company’s site itself.
Just out of curiosity, I am the first to have posted an
?
Have all the others been systematically deleted?
I know it’s probably a scam, I just want to see the truth exposed. Cecil showed the truth behind the envelope-stuffing scam.
Is there any way to post a URL without making it an active link?
It’s probably something like the envelope scam. After you register, you’ll find out that you have to take pictures of people signing contracts to take pictures, or some stupid thing.
Or, they’ll tell you to take pictures that would cost you more than $268 to get. Like, “Send us a roll of original photos of all the national monuments” or something stupid.