This week I had the misfortune of doing business with a less than reputable DJ Agency in Illinois. I will not at this time add their name till I am certain the deal has gone sour. This national DJ service recruits other professional DJs to work specific events for him and sends them an e-contract to sign. The e-conctract is returned to him automatically. 
As a subcontractor, I feel ultra-responsible for producing an excellent event. This is due to the fact that I am now representing me and HIS agency when I professional DJ this event.
It turns out after some research, that this particular agency does not pay their professional DJs but they do accept full payment in advance from the client. Meaning, they get paid $400 and the professional DJ gets nothing without the client knowing, or the professional DJ, that the professional DJ is about to work for free while producing an event.
This is sad. It would be sad regardless of the industry but I have been part of this particular industry since the late 70’s back when there were only THREE of us doing mobile professional DJ gigs at the time. I take this personally. This really burns me up! How can people sleep at night when doing business like this.
My anger wants me to name these folks to ‘get them back’. But that is not the answer, at least not out of anger. Soon I may move to a place of listing them out of service and protection to all of you and our colleagues in the industry.
Bottom line: watch who you do business with! We encourage you to take the time to research who you are doing business with BEFORE you send them money or agree to sub-contract work with them. We can together make it harder for scammers to make money off hard-working people with integrity.
Let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions on how we can make this happen together.
