CGTV: Conducting Illegitmate Scam And Targeting Teenagers? New (Update 2024)
CGTV doesn’t specify what it is. In most places, it claims to help “connect” people with the entertainment industry. But, it only sells acting courses that cost $5,000+.
In basic terms, CGTV is a scam.
It dupes parents into paying thousands of dollars to them for an unfruitful and misguided product. They are among the most crooked acting scams operating in the industry. The CEO and founder of this company is Adrian R’Mante who has worked in television series and movies.
The following review will shed more light on why CGTV is a scam and why you should ignore any CGTV showcase you hear about:
CGTV Doesn’t Help You Enter the Entertainment Industry, According to their Disclosures:
CGTV claims to help connect young talent with the entertainment industry. However, their business model has many red flags. They claim to help people get a start in TV and film but they don’t offer any help whatsoever.
Instead, the company focuses on selling a highly expensive “acting course”. But they don’t pitch themselves as a teaching company. Here’s a screenshot of their homepage:
As you can see, they don’t say anywhere that they teach acting. All they mention is that they provide guidance from celebrities who have worked in Disney, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
Even their tagline is “We have people on TV!” It implies that they help you enter the entertainment industry.
However, all these claims are lies. In reality, the company takes no responsibility for its “services” or “teaching quality”. They have mentioned it in fine print at the bottom of their homepage:
In other words, you shouldn’t expect to get an audition or a guarantee of work if you pay these guys. They even mention that the presence of any of their celebrities doesn’t mean you’ll get a job offer.
Notice that the company explicitly states that it doesn’t offer an audition or a job offer. Certainly, the company is misleading people and aspirants by claiming to help them enter this highly competitive industry when they clearly can’t.
Is CGTV Legit? Not According to Most People
I’m not the only one who thinks this is a scam. There are many people who have questioned the authenticity of this company’s claims due to its shady business model.
I found several threads where people were discussing the reliability of CGTV. In all of them, people were cautioning others about this company and recommended avoiding the same.
In one thread, the user wanted to discuss if CGTV is a scam. He shared that he drove his friend to an audition but it wasn’t like an audition at all. It felt more like the company was trying to hire people for an MLM scheme.
One guy was saying the same things for 3 hours and kept highlighting how difficult it is to get auditions. Furthermore, the audition was only getting everyone in a big room one by one and say the line they prepared.
He asked if CGTV is worth the money.
In response, people highlighted that it is definitely a scam. You don’t pay for an audition, it was more of a sales pitch.
One user said that the OP’s friend went to a sales pitch for classes of some sort. Moreover, the classes wouldn’t be good because if they were, they wouldn’t have to use a fake audition to get people.
Another user highlighted that auditions don’t take more than 15 minutes. It’s a scam acting school that will take her money and promise her she will get seen by agents at the end. Moreover, it would probably cost her $3,000.
One Redditor said that if someone is trying to sell to you in this business as an actor, they are probably a scam. Unless you’re an A-lister, in which case people might be begging for your business. But that’s not the case.
Furthermore, you should never pay anything associated with an audition. Paying for classes is a different thing but you don’t pay a nickel for something you have to audition for.
I found another thread where people were discussing the scam of CGTV. Here, the mother of a 9 year old was asking if anyone else had brought their kid to CGTV auditions. She highlighted that CGTV is most probably a scam as they charge $5,000 for keeping your kid in LA for a week.
If 200 people sign up, they have easily made themselves $1 million.
Similarly, I found a tweet calling out the dubious nature of CGTV:
The twitter user questioned why CGTV keeps the names of its casting directors and agents hidden. Moreover, why does the company have no social media handles?
In general, CGTV reviews are extremely negative. It’s a shady audition company that tries to scam young kids and their parents by selling the dream of an acting role.
Apart from the social media threads, I found a CGTV review by a parent as well:
CGTV Auditions Review:
The reviewer shares that CGTV feeds off hopeful parents and kids who want to become stars. He highlights that CGTV is a modeling scam that promises you plenty of auditions and photo shoots.
But you have to pay thousands of dollars upfront. The reviewer highlights that he went to a seminar with a lot of energy. There was an exciting presentation but that’s it.
He ended up paying $5,000 because they saw potential in his daughter but it didn’t yield any results. It was a waste of money for this parent.
CGTV is Paying BBB to Mislead Parents
By now, it’s evident that CGTV is a scam that targets young kids and their parents. Even the CGTV audition reviews share how dangerous this company is.
To distract people from all of those negative reviews and mislead them, CGTV uses unethical marketing tactics.
One of their unethical marketing endeavors is to have an accredited BBB profile. To get an accredited profile on BBB, you don’t need to have a reputed business or ethical practices. You only need to pay them around $10,000 a year and they will give your business BBB accreditation.
Having an accreditation gives you a lot of control over your BBB page. Also, it ensures you’ll have an A or A+ rating regardless of how shady your business is.
CNN Money had conducted a detailed investigation on this matter. They found that BBB was giving A+ ratings to organizations facing legal charges for discrimination or scamming numerous consumers.
Even today, many scammers pay BBB to promote themselves. It helps them mislead consumers into thinking they are a reliable company.
Peerfit is a prominent example of such an organization. Their CEO has received countless complaints for sexual harassment but is able to get away with it because of such shady marketing tactics.
CGTV Review: Conclusion
CGTV is a ruthless scam which uses unethical marketing tactics to get customers. You should stay miles away from such a company. It has received countless complaints because of its shady nature and will continue to do so.
The best way to deal with such organizations is to avoid them.
Beware! CGTV might try to add fake positive reviews in response to this post. But the point still stands, CGTV is a scam. They pose as an agency, make misleading claims, avoid responsibility, have received many complaints in the past.
My name is Joe and I just went to LA for their showcase VIP and I think it’s worth it because you just want training for your kid and they clearly state they don’t guarantee that you kiddo get a job in the industry but they do a very good job of training them. I was shocked when my daughter performed exceptionally well and they do hire a lot of staff and they are upfront about a lot of things. Me as a parent it’s hard to trust people, but they are trustable.
It was interesting reading this article. I took my daughter to a CGTV audition and yes, we paid to go to a 4-day long workshop in Maimi. I was very happy with the outcome. They were straight forward from the beginning stating that “they would give us information on how to get started in the acting industry.” At the end of the week, they held a Showcase where my daughter went on stage in front of 12 different working agents. She received 9 callbacks and has already signed with Carolina Talent. We have been practicing what the actors/actresses from CGTV have showed us on how to build a resume, slate, self-tape, build an acting reel and which sites we should be on to receive the most opportunities to audition for casting directors. My experience with CGTV was amazing. They also have a policy that allows children who don’t receive a callback to continue to participate in as many workshops (free of charge) until they get a callback.