The Bait and Switch Agent Scam. Don’t fall for this producer trick.

When a girl gets into porn she needs an agent. It’s nearly impossible for a new performer who knows nobody in the industry to have the contacts and connections she needs to be a success.

The problem is, agents are often times the first ones thrown under the bus.

• If a girl isn’t getting bookings, it’s her agent’s fault.
• If a girl is late to a shoot, it’s her agents’ fault.
• A producer is late on a payment, it’s her agent’s fault.

Anything and everything that can go wrong and has gone wrong on set is almost always blamed on the agent.

An agent has to be all and know all and if they don’t live up to expectations or a performer is having a bad day, watch how fast she will turn on her agent.

Most agents have thick skin and are used to this and go on about their business and when things blow over everything is good again.

There is nothing most agents can ever do that will be right 100% of the time. They catch so much shit but in the end, that girl needs her agent because her agent is not only working to get her jobs, but he’s also protecting her from predatory practices by some producers.

For example, someone without an agent might book a scene that’s a boy/girl and show up the producer insists that it’s a boy/boy/boy/girl. What can you do? A girl with an agent wouldn’t face this problem because the agent would take care of it. I’ve heard of a chick showing up on a blowjob shoot for $300 and the guy at the last minute insisted it needed to be a rape fantasy shoot and didn’t want to pay her more. Had the girl had an agent she could have saved herself the hassle and 1 and a half hour Uber ride to the set.

A good agent has bargaining power. A good agent and throw his or her weight around and say hey, if you fuck over my girl, I’ll never let you work with any of my girls again. Might not matter if your agent is a nobody, but imagine how damaging that could be to a producer who wants access to some of the best talent, the talent some of the bigger agencies have.

More often than not producers are not friends with your agent. This is because they are working towards different goals. A producer wants to book the best talent for the least amount of money. An agent wants to get a producer to hire their talent for the most amount of money.

Somewhere, something has to give. And sometimes that “something” is in the form of backdoor deals with competing agents.

Today a producer is only given so much money to produce a scene. They have to complete the scene within that set amount of money. Anything that is left over is what the producer makes so the less a producer can pay for talent, location (or anything for that matter) then the more money the producer can put in his pocket. This is also why you often hear about male talent working as producers because they can double as the male talent, saving, even more, money — but that’s another story for another day.

One thing that has come to be lately is the producer kickback from agents. When you get a new girl on set, the producer may try and talk trash about your agent and get you to switch to someone else. It’s not that the new agent is any better, hell he may even be worse, but the producer is paid some money for every new girl he sends the agents way.

It’s called the agent bait and switch.

One particular producer has it down to an artform. He casually asks which agent the girl is with and then doesn’t say a word, just sort of gives an odd facial expression. When the girl asks “What? What’s wrong with my agent?” as she inevitably will, the guy is like oh nothing, nothing. Then later his PA (which also happens to be his girlfriend) pulls the girl aside later and whispers in the girl’s ear, telling the girl all kinds of shit about her agent then later either the producer or the girlfriend will casually bring up an agent they work with all the time.

It’s the classic producer bait and switch.

Sometimes they go with the line like, Oh if you weren’t with – so and so – I would book you more.

If you start hearing bad things about your agent from producers, you really need to stop and ask yourself, why that is.

Are they being honest with you, or do they have their own agenda?

I can assure you more likely than not, it’s not that your agent is really bad, it’s that the producer just wants to make a few extra bucks off of you.

That’s not to say there aren’t some bad agents out there, all I’m saying is, if you are hearing it from a producer or someone on set, ask yourself why.

Is that person telling you the truth or is he trying to get you to go to another agent so he can make some quick cash off of you?