We also received a phone call and were very excited of the opportunity to promote our company. A person who presented himself as Jim Nicholas, said its in the process immediately - BEFORE ANY PAYMENT. They pushed to sign a contract claiming that time is valuable at CNN Business and other networks. We did sign a contract and submitted a check request. Then it all started.

Our compliance could not complete due diligence and our lawyers alerted us of a possible scam. Several people called presenting themselves as Jim Nicholas, Kyra Burton and Anne Kole - representatives of the Environmental Report with Terry Bradshaw. Our compliance contacted Terry's official representatives and a month passed by and they could not confirm the legitimacy of these people.

In the meanwhile we got an invoice for a Scheduling Fee (what a surprise - not services - a Scheduling Fee). The invoice was generic of QuickBooks - Not even their company name in a header, not any graphics to it. Now, our marketing people got concerned, saying "What kind of promotion these guys can do for us, if they failed to promote themselves with their basic documentation"? It looks weird...

That's not all. The invoice asked us to pay $19,800 to the United States Media Television
6250 Coral Ridge Drive, Suite 200, Coral Springs, FL 33076. Wait a minute, our contract was with The Environmental Report with Terry Bradshaw! Apparently, they explained its one of their shows.

OK, we read the warnings on this site and tried searching for more. The emails kept coming from two addresses: us-media.net and studiodept.com, none of which has a public website. Even more bizarre.

We put the payment on hold and started investigating this matter a little further, with the second priority after our main business objectives. In a week, a person who called herself Kyra Burton threatened legal actions. For what!?? What have you done for us except pushing for a payment? Nada!

U.S. Media Television has a website at http://www.usmediatelevision.com/ There is Kyra Burton featured on website, but now we are really suspicious what was her that called and send emails. So, we'll ask local police to investigate further. After all, we do pay taxes and spending our time on this is pointless.

At this point, we highly doubt the legitimacy of this enterprise. I do not mean to offend real Kyra Burton, Jim Nicholas, and Anne Kole if they are not a part of this fraud. And if they are a legitimate company trying to promote others - it should be certainly about their customers interests and not about their check. At this point, we doubt they can promote us, so we will keep that payment on hold.

No free lunch

We received a call from Mr. Gary Baris also, but he represented himself as a producer for The Art Of Living television program which was to air on HGTV. Same deal $19,700 for a five minute segment. He was very confrontational when we pushed the for more concrete informtion.

They called us to do a 5 min piece on us and then we knocked down the price from 20K to 14K and then two payments of 7K each once now and once on the day of the shoot.


and when our lawyer called them and asked for details they did not give it and were confused.  

my lawyer is been doing this for a while and represents all of our 16 locations and told us this is a big scam

Sorry to disappoint any trusting souls out there, but this is absolutely 100% a scam (unless you're the type of person who is happy to pay $15 for a box of cereal at your dilapidated corner mini-mart as opposed to the cereal's true price of $3.25 at your local supermarket.. who knows, it's possible). I say this with such certainty because my ex works for them, and trust me, they're all about selling ice cubes to eskimos.  So Watch Out, high pressure unrelenting sales tactics are the corner stone of their business... without it they'd make almost no money at all.

Yup, agree with Nay Nay. . .

Yeah, okay. . .now pass whatever you are smoking over to me.

I looked into this and it seems to be a fair opportunity. The ability to utilize a segment with a celebrity host alone would costs over  $20,000

Here is some stuff on the net. They have gone bankrupt few times, so they do not pay your money back@!

Careful of scams to get media coverage

October 4, 2007 by ShannonCherry  
Filed under Entrepreneurship

8 Comments

A client, Ann, emailed me the other day about a very upsetting phone call.

Apparently a TV company thought she would be an ideal guest on a show that is on ABC Family and PAX. But first, they need to make sure she would be a good interview. So for 20 minutes or so, they talked. Ann got more and more excited - especially when this person said she?d be a great guest - so much so that they would dedicate 20 minutes to her.

Then came the scam: although this company would take care of all the production & advertising costs
, there was a $19,000 licensing fee in order to get all the legalities out of the way.

$19000! That?s more than my clients pay me for a year?s worth of my services! And I get them in major magazines and TV programs without paying any special fees for the privilege.

Here?s the real deal: if ABC, PAX or any TV station or show wanted to do an interview with you, they would do it for free. That?s how publicity works.

And with a little more research, I found out that that many start up entrepreneurs are also getting the same phone call.

And the name of the company is Platinum Television Group (http://www.platinumtelevision.com).

What?s happening is that these bottom feeders are searching PR WEB and other release posting portals to find people who want publicity. They are so-called ?creative directors? who are sales people to convince you that this is the best thing going.

And if you look, you?ll see that they are on some ABC channels, some PAX channels, and some cable access channels. But the time slots are around 4 in the morning! What real person is watching TV at 4 AM that?s going to make a difference to your business?

They, as a company have been dissolved twice and their parent company has also been dissolved a number of times. What this means is that they have declared bankruptcy many times in order to avoid paying people they owe money to.

So if it?s too good to be true?

Yes, We got the similar Calls. Sounds very fishy. Great to see your posting. We are going to also looking into this.


We got an email by Doug Scott (The Company is registered under his name), but someone else Signature, trying to push us to pay.

Doug Scott <dscott@usmediatelevision.com>

Attached is the airing schedule for Inside Business that is regionally.  I do not see any right now in the Phoenix market.  We will probably be airing in that market in August/September.     Also to answer your question about our film crew going to a jobsite that is actually applying or has applied the product.  YES.  We would rather film that as it will be more exciting for the viewer.



My concern is the segment slots filling up and not being available anymore, so please sign and fax back the Participation Agreement ASAP if this is something you want to move forward with.





Thank you





Gary Baris

Senior Producer

U.S Media Television, Inc                            

U.S Media Executive Center

6250 Coral Ridge Drive

Coral Springs,  FL  33076

954.379.4321

954.379.4419 fax

www.usmediatelevision.co

I received the same call, identical amount up front and of course felt taken back by an up front scheduling fee.  I just did a simple search and found all of you.  Thanks for the info.  I have a scheduled phone meeting with the senior producer tomorrow morning.  I cant wait to rip into them and mess with their heads!!!

This caller tried to sell his services as a producer of television content to be aired on CNBC and CNN.  Initial e-mails were sent by Lacey Gubenko. The contacting person is Robert Chenoff who claims to be an associate producer for "Inside Business with Fred Thompson".  He called on behalf of "USMEDIATELEVISION" and tried to sell me on the idea of paying $19,700 as a fee for the production of a 5-min segment to run on CNN Headline News and CNBC.  Our institutional media department ran a background check and advised to use extreme caution in dealing with USMEDIATELEVISION and anyone calling on behalf of "Inside Business with Fred Thompson". As a general rule, legitimate content providers will not charge a fee for producing an interview or segment for a good story. The usual way a publicity scam operates is that the victim is enticed to sign a production contract and pays a fee.  In the worst case, nobody ever shows up to shoot the story. The scammers simply run with the money. In the best case, the victim paid $19,700 for a beautifully done TV interview that never airs on the national or regional high impact channels promised by the production company.  Please also look at the detailed trail left for 1-954-312-0488. It seems the business model of the people operating under that number is identical to the one being offered under a new number:  1-954-379-4390.
A suggestion: You can protect yourself by insisting to pay the production fee only AFTER the segment has aired as promised in the sales materials. Don't pay upfront. If the producer refuses, you should walk away.