How a Voiceover Scam Got Past My Radar – and the Workflow I Use Now

I’ve been a professional voice actor for about 20 years, and I know what the obvious voiceover scams look like: bad grammar, strange phrasing, ridiculous offers, or people who clearly don’t understand the language of voiceover and production.

This wasn’t one of those.

That’s why I’m sharing it. Scams are getting sophisticated enough that experience alone is no longer a sufficient safeguard. We need a verification process built into the way we do business.

The job looked completely normal

This one came through Voice123.com. The message was well written, the person used our industry language, the company was real, the person whose name he was using was real, and the rate was completely plausible. I auditioned, booked the job, signed the contract, had the client sign an AI waiver and recorded the voiceover before I realized anything was wrong. The company itself was a lighting company, nothing glamorous or attention-grabbing. In fact, that probably made the whole thing feel more credible.

There were a few odd details along the way. The person was using an Outlook address, but plenty of legitimate clients use Outlook or Gmail, so that alone meant nothing. The contract also specifically stated that they did not provide payment up front, which struck me as unusual because I had never seen anyone bother to put that in a contract before.

Then came another phrase I’ve started noticing in scam correspondence: “Thank you for your professionalism.” Perfectly reasonable on its own. But it was another little thing that scammers happen to say. For real.

None of these details stopped me because none of them, individually, seemed serious enough to justify stopping the project.

Then the payment instructions arrived.

The moment I knew it was a voiceover scam

After I recorded and delivered the job, I received an email explaining that their payroll department had “consolidated” several project payments. My agreed fee would remain around $850, but they were also going to send me $1,500 for a supposed video production team, plus another $50 for possible transfer fees.

In other words, I would receive roughly $2,400, keep my fee and forward $1,500 to somebody else.

That was it. I knew immediately what I was looking at.

This is the classic overpayment or fake-check scam. The scammer sends you substantially more money than you are owed and asks you to forward part of it to another vendor. You deposit their payment, send the other party money from your own account, and then the original payment turns out to be fraudulent or is reversed.

Their payment disappears. The money you sent does not.

In my case, they had worked through an audition, correspondence, a contract and an actual voiceover recording to get to that $1,500. That’s a fair amount of effort, but that’s the point: for professional scammers, the scam is the work.

The person and the company were real

Once I saw the payment instructions, I asked the supposed client for a telephone number. While I was waiting, I finally looked him up.

There he was on LinkedIn: correct name, correct company, real photograph. I found the company website and saw him listed there too. At first glance, everything matched.

So I called the company directly, using contact information I found independently rather than anything the supposed client had given me. By sheer luck, I reached the actual employee.

I basically said, “Hi. I’m Natasha Marchewka. I’m a voice talent. Did I just work for you?”

Nope.

He had never hired me, and apparently his phone had already been blowing up with calls from other people who had been contacted using his identity.

That may have been the most useful lesson of the entire experience: finding someone on LinkedIn is not necessarily verification. A scammer can copy a real person’s name, title, photo and employer. A matching LinkedIn profile may only prove that the person being impersonated exists.

My new workflow for my new clients

I don’t want to become suspicious of everyone who contacts me. Most new clients are exactly what they appear to be, and I have no interest in turning every inquiry into an investigation.

What I do want is a repeatable process so I’m not relying entirely on whether something happens to “feel” suspicious that day.

1. Research the person and company independently

Before I go too far into a new project, I want to know whether the company exists, whether the person actually works there, whether their professional history makes sense and whether I can independently confirm some of their contact information.

The important word there is independently. I don’t want to verify someone using only the phone number, website or contact information they supplied to me.

2. Check their platform history

On Voice123, talent can see some information about a client’s activity. When I looked at this client after the fact, the account was brand new, had sent a large number of messages and had almost no casting history.

That does not automatically mean scam. Every legitimate client has a first day on a platform. But when you combine a brand-new account with a generic email address, odd contract language and other inconsistencies, the picture starts to change.

3. Have a quick phone or Zoom conversation

This is probably my biggest change. I already have a Calendly link for a 15-minute production call, and I intend to use it much more intentionally with new clients.

It doesn’t need to be an interrogation, and it doesn’t even need to take 15 minutes. There are plenty of legitimate production questions to discuss: What is the final use? Are there unusual pronunciations? Is there music? Will there be a directed session? Who else is involved? What is the timeline?

Five minutes may be plenty, and there is a business upside beyond scam prevention. We’ve actually met. A real conversation can turn a transaction into a relationship, which may ultimately make that client more likely to remember and hire me again.

There’s something rather interesting about that. One of the things scammers may force us to do is become more human in the way we run our businesses. A ha!

I don’t necessarily hate that.

4. If I still can’t verify them, I may ask for a deposit

Sometimes a perfectly legitimate person really cannot jump on Zoom. Fine. If a new client can’t or won’t speak with me and I can’t adequately verify them another way, I may ask for a deposit before recording.

That does not mean anyone declining a Zoom is suspicious. Busy, legitimate people exist. A deposit simply gives me another reasonable layer of protection when the other verification step isn’t available.

5. Never act as someone else’s payment intermediary

This one is simple. A client pays me for my voiceover. They pay their video producer, editor, production company and other vendors themselves.

I am not their bank.

If someone wants to send me substantially more than my fee and then asks me to redistribute part of it to somebody else, the project stops there.

6. Be cautious with unexpected payment files and links

In my case, the supposed check arrived as a password-protected PDF, which was another unusual detail. Unexpected payment files, links, attachments and password-protected documents deserve extra scrutiny, especially when something else about the project has already started to feel strange. In the freelancing voiceover business, every job is different and payment types vary. However, after 20 years, I have never had to click or download or use a password to access my payment.

Use the voiceover community

After I shared what happened, I heard versions of the same thing repeatedly: “This happened to me.” Sometimes it was last year, sometimes last week, sometimes with a different name or a slightly different setup.

That’s one reason the Facebook group Voiceover Red Flags can be so useful. You can search a name, company or suspicious situation and discover that another talent may already have encountered it.

Douglas Turkel has also created the VO Scam Scanner, a tool designed specifically to help voice talent examine suspicious messages for scam indicators.

No tool replaces your own judgment, but community knowledge can help us recognize patterns much faster.

One red flag usually isn’t enough

I don’t want anyone walking away from this thinking that an Outlook address means scam, a brand-new Voice123 client means scam, or someone who doesn’t have time for Zoom means scam.

None of that is true.

A legitimate client may use Gmail. They may be posting their very first voiceover project. They may genuinely have no interest in adding another video meeting to their day. What matters is the pattern. When several unusual things begin to stack up, that’s when I stop and verify.

Why I’m telling this story

I was embarrassed that I got as far as I did. I’ve worked online for decades, I know the voiceover business, and I’ve seen plenty of scams.

But voice over jobs themselves aren’t standardized. One client wants a directed session. Another wants finished files emailed. Another sends a purchase order. Another pays through a platform. Another has an elaborate corporate accounting system. Legitimate jobs arrive in many different packages, and scammers can exploit that ambiguity.

So I’m not trying to memorize every scam that might come along next. I’m changing the process.

• Research the client,
• have the conversation,
• understand who is paying you and
• never forward somebody else’s money.

And if a client wants to send you $2,400 and have you pass $1,500 of it along to a mysterious production company?

That one’s easy.

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Voiceover Scam FAQ

• What is an overpayment scam in voiceover?
  • A supposed client sends the voice actor more money than their agreed fee and asks them to forward the difference to another person or company. The original payment later fails or is reversed, while the money the voice actor sent comes from their own account.
• What are common warning signs of a voiceover scam?
  • Possible warning signs include unusual payment arrangements, requests to forward money, suspicious payment links or attachments, inconsistencies between the person and company, very new casting-platform accounts and resistance to reasonable verification. No single one of these automatically proves fraud.
• Is a Gmail or Outlook address a scam warning?
  • It can be one small piece of the picture, but it is not proof. Many legitimate clients use generic email services.
• How can voice actors verify a new client?
  • Research the person and company independently, check available casting-platform history and consider a short phone or video conversation before completing substantial work.
• Can scammers impersonate real employees?
  • Yes. The scammer in my case used the identity of a real employee at a real company, which is why a matching LinkedIn profile should not always be considered sufficient verification.
• Should voice actors ask new clients for deposits?
  • A deposit can provide an additional layer of protection, particularly when a new client cannot otherwise be adequately verified. Individual policies will vary by talent and project.
• A tale for all freelancers?
  • Yes, yes, yes!! If you run a freelance business, just replace the word voiceover with whatever you do… Same $#!+. Different day.

This blog post is based on a podcast interview I did for BuildingDoorsVO.com about the circumstances above: Red Flags, Real Talk