Roger Wayne Local Guide
3 Mar 2019
Professional VO artist for over 10 years here. Started off as a broadcast journalist in the Air Force based internationally, and have now worked in the civilian market for 9 years, the last 3-4 years doing it full-time in NYC.
This site has some serious issues at best, and at worst may be a bit scandalous in how they do business. You've been warned.
I signed up in Oct. 2018, experience started off great, getting invites to auditions for $500-$1000 or more, doing a lot of auditions. Everything was wonderful. The holidays come along and I leave for a week. Suddenly, during that week I get more audition coming to my e-mail than I've ever seen. Interesting, because I'm on vacation and I can't submit to a damn thing.
So sure enough, (because their algorithm gets you invites based on how often and how many invites you submit to) I get back right before the new year to just a few auditions. Then after the new year and for the past 3 weeks I get almost nothing but no-paying or student gigs. After I paid $400 3 months ago.
I e-mail customer support, he tells me there is a 'hiss' in the background of some of my auditions that he listened to, (oh yeah, fyi, your library of work with Voice123 is in the hands of just a few folks, people who, if they decide they don't like you, will just sabotage your account without you knowing and you're dead in the water, with no auditions and no refund. These people can decide to delete your audition.)
So I'm thinking that's funny that there's a hiss because, I've done about 3 audiobooks a month for over 2 years in the same booth, one of which was an award winner and the highest-selling book of 2017, and also the same mp3 files I submit to Voice123 are the same types of files I send to casting directors and my Agents here in New York, one of which is Innovative Artists, a bi-coastal Agency that represents a number of celebs. I work with top publishers when I voice my books, pretty sure they would know if there was a 'hiss' in my audio.
So he offers to check it out by having me send him the file, but twice avoids my question regarding if not submitting over the holiday affected my invitations or not.
Then after he tells me this, coincidentally, I get an e-mail from a guy that says he heard my audition that I sent months ago, and even though I didn't get that job, he wants me to do voice work for his company. But wait, I thought there was a hiss in my audio? Why would this gentleman want me to work for him?? ;)
Could just be a coincidence, or it could be that the way Voice123 deals with disgruntled folk who are willing to dig deep to find the problem, is to communicate in the back-channels to get you some work so you'll keep your mouth shut. (the customer service guy, and the guy offering me the job are both from Australia..hmmm.... damn Australians..) Kidding, but in all seriousness, it wouldn't surprise me if this is how they dupe and manage to keep people on their website, particularly new-comers. Anyway..
When I signed up in October their website was the way it was originally, where you would get invites, but you could also search for jobs. They updated over the holiday and now you can't even do that.
The other thing is, when I do get auditions, many times it's between midnight and 3am or some crazy time, and it will have a super limited window to submit. And the thing is, if you miss the window or you do submit but it's not soon enough, the website's algorithm will determine that you're not submitting for those types of jobs, so it will drop your rating and give you low-tier jobs. I'm not joking, this is how the system actually works folks.
Being an established voice actor, I believe it's my duty to give an honest opinion of a service like this, for voice actors, especially one you pay a lot of money for. Especially for someone starting out, $400 is not cheap.
Just take your money elsewhere.
