FLIX INSTITUTE: Why use Royalty Free photos?
Mon, 25 Feb 2008, 06:13 pmWARNING28 posts in thread
FLIX INSTITUTE: Why use Royalty Free photos?
Mon, 25 Feb 2008, 06:13 pmA good friend of mine was once a student at a Brisbane Makeup School called Flix Institute of Makeup. After seeing my friend being taken for a ride by this place and left not happy with the quality of this school, I decided to do something that not many people have done before and RESEARCHED this place!
I feel that it is important to reveal to anyone wanting to learn this craft what I have found and what this unprofessional place falsely displays to promote themselves.
Firstly Flix Institute is a Makeup Training School which is run by a lady named Angela Waugh that also runs a business called Angel IFX that supplies makeup and hair services for weddings. The one thing that I would firstly like to bring up is that photos on the Flix Institute web site and the photos on the Angel IFX web site are "ROYALTY FREE IMAGES" this means that the photos of makeup that are obviously displayed to showcase what they can do are not and have not been created by Angela Waugh, any trainer or any artist or student! All these photos have been bought. This is a major red light to start with. On the Angel IFX website the following is said:
"Over the last six years, Angel IFX have grown to become one of Australia’s largest hair and makeup Bridal Agencies. Our fully Qualified and experienced makeup artists and Hairstylists have all been trained by leading academies world wide, and have been called upon by such magazines as CLEO, Ralph and Black and White magazine to name but a few. Angel IFX consists of award winning and Internationally renowned Artists whose work has also features in such productions as Lord Of the Rings, Harry Potter, Anaconda II and House of Wax, and have also been requested personally by Paris Hilton and Kate Hudson, among others, for various red Carpet Events".
If this place has been running for 6 years and has "INTERNATIONAL" artists, why is this site full of royalty free images? I would think that they should have enough photos of there own work to show case there skills??
With Flix Institute, the last place I would want to learn from is a place that displays only 10 photos of students work and the rest Royalty Free??
Below are the links to the royalty free photos used on Flix Institute and Angel IFX web sites.
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/3747159_the_beautiful_young_blonde.php?id=3747159
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/relationships/weddings/brides/3084425_the_bride.php?id=3084425
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/3977047_bride_and_groom.php?id=3977047
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/gender/female/women/3428801_pearls.php?id=3428801
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/4021853_bride_in_the_limousine.php?id=4021853
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=4366561
But wait, there's more ...
Wed, 26 Mar 2008, 06:48 pmAngela
I don't know if you read this blog, but it's apparent that people connected with your business do.
My interest in your business, is of course is trying to settle an outstanding advertising account that we claim you owe our business, Scene Magazine. You will remember that we also published a great editorial on Flix Institute in our careers supplement as well as providing a discount on the ad - all good.
However that was five months ago (10th September 2007). In that time we have left numerous messages for you (land line and mobile), written polite e-mails - none of which have been returned.
The last step in our process is to refer the matter to Dun and Bradstreet for collection. However, as you were a cash sale we had no details to give them (no account was set up, we were happy to take you on your word - it was such a small amount anyway $165.00).
Like others on this site, we had to do a bit of research on your company to identify Flix Institute as a legal entity. This was just a little difficult because our searches with ASIC revealed that Flix is not an incorporated company, and Flix Institute had not taken the courteous (necessary) step of identifying itself (legally) on any of its web-site material. Amazingly, even your credit and course applications did not identify your ABN, ACN or ABRN. I'd like to suggest that you investigate this immediately because I believe you are obligated to do so on your site(s) and certainly the terms and conditions you ask your prospects to sign are entitled to have the legal identity with whom they are contracting identified. Flix Institute, as far as I could tell is not a registered name with ANY of ASIC, ATO or Australian Business Regsiter.
The only information we could find is that you have trading name registered as Flix Agency QLD BN20496230.
We are thankful to the other posters who have given us your last name as Waugh. We were not given this information when we called and asked for it.
While I am not in the market for your agency's products, I did stumble across this thread in Google and wasn't surprised to see a number of other people having difficulty interacting with Flix Institute, based on our own experiences.
This information is offered as fair comment and in context.
If any party (including Angela) has any issue with what has been posted here, please call our offices on (07) 3216 0630 and ask me, Howard Duggan, CEO to discuss.
- ···
- ···