Studio 414 Contest Legit?

[Alorien]

I was wondering if the Studio 414 and other similar contests (starshooter)
are legit or should i run far far away :confused:

I'm curious and if this doesnt go here please delete/move it.

[Woolburr]

Lots of places call it a scam. A lot of it has to do with being charged an entry fee. An entry fee by itself isn't a red flag, because there are legitimate calls for entry that have an entry fee to help weed out the serious artists from the average snapshooter. So how do you tell if it is legit or not? A legit competition has very clear cut and specific rules, the prizes are almost always cash and the winning entries are placed on some form of public display for a period of time. Contests that offer to give away a prize once they have sufficient entries are always a scam. Photo contests that want you to buy a book to qualify your entry are always a scam. Take a few minutes and read the fine print on the site. What is written (and sometimes what isn't written) can be a big clue to the legitimacy of a contest. Of course, perhaps one of the surest ways to tell if the contest is legit it to look at two key points....how long has the contest been running and exactly who is running it. If this is the 25th annual call for entries, odds are good that you are dealing with a legit competition. If the contest is sponsored by Canon, Nikon, or other major photo equipment manufacturer, retail outlet, gallery or news agency...it is probably legit. If it is the First Annual Brooklyn Bob's House of Photo event...odds are good you might be looking at a scam. And of course, if it sounds too good to be true...you can be that it is.

[johnj2803]

i am also curious about this.

they have a winners gallery, and one testimonial. They are buying the prizes themselves and i think have no sponsors outside their website. And it seems that they have run the contest more than 10 times already.

I have mixed feelings about this site.

anyone else have a go at this?

[MrKyp]

I entered the weekly contest about six weeks ago and it has been about seven weeks since Studio 414 held a contest. I wrote and received a note back saying that they did not get enough contest participants. I have to question why there is no street address or phone number at this point if they are legitimate. They do state in the rules that they can wait for the drawing if there are not enough participants and leave that completely open ended. So who knows, maybe one day they will have contestants to hold another drawing. Meanwhile they keep collecting people’s money. It sure does sound like a scam to me at this point. Seems like they collect a lot of nickels with no one to check to see what's going on. Maybe a counter of the number of people would be a good idea, but then again if it is their site and it is a scam why couldn't they just adjust the numbers there too. I won't be entering again that's for sure, nor will I suggest to anyone that they are a legitimate site or contest. I for one am disappointed in Studio 414 and how they operate!

[cjschmit]

I went to enter one of their contests yesterday, figured $5 was worth it to try once. Well what they don't tell you is AFTER you pay the $5 another screen comes up telling you that you need to pay an additional $29.00 that will allow you to upload a total of 12 images. It's a gotcha because you don't find out about the $29 fee till AFTER you have paid a non-refundable $5. So unless you like just tossing your $$ around I'd suggest staying away from their contests.