Want to be Quebec's next top model? Pay up

Contestants charged $3,500 up front. Toronto agency with checkered history raises concerns during Montreal auditions for show.

Are they looking for Quebec’s next top model or are they simply looking for suckers?

A Toronto-based modeling agency, whose owners have a reputation for taking money from young women and never contacting them again, has been sending representatives to Montreal to act as casting agents for a show they call Quebec’s Next Top Model.

According to the show’s website, it held auditions at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel on July 26 and at the Château Laurier in Quebec City on July 27. Representatives also operated out of the W Hotel at Victoria Square last weekend, where they held more auditions with several aspiring models.

The show is touted on its website as the next version of popular reality television shows like America’s Next Top Model and Canada’s Next Top Model. According to the website, the show offers models between ages 13 and 32 a chance to participate on the show, and the “winner gets a $10,000 contract with a top agency and to be a spokesperson for a makeup product line and more!!!”

But the director of Century Models & Talent Agency admits Quebec’s Next Top Model has no direct association with either show and is not backed by any television network.

That is his justification for asking selected contestants to pay more than $3,500 to be on the show, which he said will be shot at a secret location in a house in Montreal.

A television executive familiar with Canada’s Next Top Model said that show doesn’t require fees from contestants up front.

A Montreal university student who decided to take a chance at being on the show said she lost interest after she was informed of the $3,500 fee. The experience left her wondering whether the show is legitimate and prompted her to do a quick search on the Internet using the name Mark Heinz, the casting agent she was introduced to in Montreal.

What she found left her even more concerned. Complaints had been posted to online modeling forums by Canadian women who said they gave an agent named Mark Heinz significant amounts of money and never heard from him again.

“It was really bizarre,” the student, who spoke on condition that her name not be used, said of her experience. She is also concerned because the company now has some of her personal information.

A call from The Gazette to Century Models & Talent Agency requesting information about the show produced a bizarre series of replies.

“Here’s the thing. We can’t give any information because there’s a pilot being made and we don’t want to leak any information,” said Ali, an employee who answered the initial call.

When asked whether the company’s owner or Mark Heinz was available for an interview, the employee became rude.

“To be honest, if any model has mentioned anything to you about Quebec’s Next Top Model, they have signed a contract, they will be losing the contestant’s spot right away,” he said before threatening to have “lawyers” call The Gazette.

“You know what, buddy? You do not want to mess with me, buddy. I can’t leak any information to you whatsoever. If you leak any information, I swear to God … ,” Ali said before hanging up.

That conversation was quickly followed by a call from Shahzah Zahone, who described himself as an agent for the modeling agency. He apologized for Ali’s rudeness, saying: “He’s new in the business and doesn’t know how to talk to people.”

Zahone said Quebec’s Next Top Model could not issue any information about the show. He said a news conference would be held this month, during which all questions could be answered.

Both Ali and Zahone confirmed that a man named Mark Heinz works for the modeling agency.

Minutes later, a man named Frank Costello, who described himself as the director of Century Models & Talent Agency, called and offered an explanation for the $3,500 he has asked models to pay to be on Quebec’s Next Top Model.

“That is for staying in the house, for the photo-shoot competitions, for the travelling and the food and lodging, because I don’t have a network backing me up. We’re producing it with the help of the contestants. It’s a smart idea for us,” Costello said.

But when asked which television production company is involved with the show, Costello identified a company, Universal Artists Productions, that doesn’t appear to exist and is not recognized by the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec as having ever worked in this province.

According to the Better Business Bureau in Mid-Western and Central Ontario, a consumer advocacy organization, Century Models & Talent Agency is not considered an accredited business because it failed to respond to two complaints from models who said they paid the agency between $850 and $950 for photos and never heard from it again.

“We’ve actually received between 25 to 30 inquiries a month about them since June,” said Ric Borski, president of the Better Business Bureau. “That is quite unusual and the inquiries started coming in all of a sudden. It’s actually a good thing, because it means people are checking them out before dealing with them.”

Century Models & Talent Agency shares the same phone number and business address on Yonge St. in a Toronto skyscraper as La Cité Modeling & Talent Agency.

In May 2008, La Cité Modeling & Talent Agency was charged with three counts under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act.

According to Ontario’s Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, “(a) consumer alleged that she was misled about the products and services received in exchange for payment of $2,000. The consumer was not provided with a copy of the contract, never received any of the products paid for, and was not provided with a refund after exercising her statutory right to cancel the contract.”

On Sept. 15, the company pleaded guilty to one count of failure to deliver a personal services contract to the consumer, was fined $5,000 and agreed to pay her full restitution.

When asked about La Cité Modeling and Talent Agency, Costello first claimed to know nothing about it.

“What’s La Cité? Isn’t it a school in Montreal? La Cité is not tied to us,” Costello said.

But when Costello was informed that Ontario’s Better Business Bureau listed him as director of La Cité Modeling and Talent Agency in 2007 and that it shares the same address and telephone number as Century Models & Talent Agency, he changed his tune.

“We took over (La Cité Modeling & Talent Agency). When you take over an office, it’s a complete shift of entity,” he said.

When pressed further about why the Better Business Bureau would have listed him as La Cité’s director in 2007, Costello said the information was false.

Costello also identified the producer of Quebec’s Next Top Model as Saroor Hasan Zaidi. According to Ontario incorporation records, this man has owned both La Cité Modeling & Talent Agency and Century Models and Talent Agency at some point.

The 19-year-old Montreal university student who recently showed up at a Montreal hotel after making an appointment over the Internet with Quebec’s Next Top Model said she is disappointed with the experience.

She said she was impressed the agency used a such a posh Montreal hotel to host auditions. She also noted the company requires that women under age 22 bring a parent along if they hope to sign a contract.

“I thought: ‘This is a nice hotel. This must be legit,’ ” she said.

“You just want to believe people. … But once he started talking about money, I thought, ‘Oh, no.’

Want to be Quebec’s next top model? Pay up