Model pizza parlour

The empty pizza parlour. Photo / Herald on Sunday

An under-fire modelling website's registered headquarters is a vacant pizza parlour, where bills addressed to its founder are piling up on the floor.

School Model Search founder Tracey Watson has taken out several full-page newspaper advertisements over the past month, asking students of all ages to send photographs of themselves and a $20 entry fee to be in to win a $100,000 prize.

The website promotes itself as a talent-finding business, with lucrative prizes for winning students.

Watson has told the Herald on Sunday that 500 New Zealanders have already signed up, but she has been coy on specific details - and New Zealand's consumer watchdog and modelling experts have urged caution.

Watson would not name which producers and talent and modelling agencies were supporting her business, saying they were from overseas.

Top New Zealand modelling and talent agencies, including Sara Tetro of 62 Models and Talent, hadn't heard of School Model Search.

Internet watchdog Netsafe and the Consumer Institute said they were dubious of any venture that asked people to pay $20 to merely register.

Watson has promised the Herald on Sunday for a fortnight that she will supply photographs and specific information but to no avail.

She said she had been a fashion designer for 20 years and was running the same competition in Australia, UK and America.

"It's a much needed thing," she said. "There's a lot of talent out there but they don't know where to go."

Several days before she first advertised her business, Watson registered it with the Companies Office under the name ITime Search Ltd.

The Herald on Sunday visited the listed address yesterday - it is a vacant pizza parlour in Albany's main shopping strip.

Unopened bills addressed to Watson were lying on the floor.

In its advertising material, School Model Search lists its address as level 27 of the PricewaterhouseCoopers building in Auckland City.

When a reporter visited, she was told Watson worked from the office only three days a week and was unavailable.

One 17-year-old student said she sent a photo and the $20 entry fee to the website this month.

It wasn't until she realised there was no contact information on the website that she became concerned.

After registering, the teenager received an email from Shelley Williams, of www.schoolmodelsearch.co.nz, saying they had received her application and entry fee, but they would be uncontactable until March 23.

A phone number was supplied for urgent inquiries, which went to an accountancy business. "I'm not too worried about what will happen with my photo I sent through because it's one from my bebo page, but I'll be more careful in the future I think."

Mandy Jacobsen of Red Eleven Model Talent Management urged people to be wary.

"It sounds like whoever they are are cashing in on New Zealand's Next Top Model and taking advantage of young girls who want to get into the modelling business."

Sara Tetro, of 62 Models and Talent and judge of New Zealand's Next Top Model, said her biggest issue was one advertisement had a $1 million prize while an advertisement the following week didn't mention the same amount.

School Model Search promises the winner from a nationwide competition will win $10,000 cash and only one will take out the $100,000.

The advertisement says the nationwide winner will then have the opportunity to win $1 million from an international competition.