Hi! I wanted to make a post warning of a studio called Version One Studio that offers an 8 week Toon Boom rigging courses which could be a potential scam. They don’t have a conventional online course like buying online classes such as Schoolisim or CGMA but will ask for payment via PayPal. Once you show interest in their course, they will spam you over email constantly about their course, pushing extremely steep discounts each time like 30-40% off which is tempting to someone trying to learn a new industry skill with very little budget. I went for it thinking it was just a small studio starting out with online courses, but it quickly made a weird turn.
When I tried to pay for their course over PayPal, they suddenly claimed their PayPal was under a verification process and refunded the money, only to ask for it to be E Transferred instead. My bank stopped the transaction and informed me the person running Version One Studios, Jules Cherubin, has multiple fraud charges against them. I got my money refunded back from them but despite me blocking their email, I still get spam from them to this day offering their steeply discounted courses despite me clearly stating to them that I wasn’t interested. They are very well versed, communicative and professional, giving a ton of information on the course which seems too good to be true, but if it’s too good to be true… well, it probably isn’t. Especially nowadays where people’s guards can be down and can lean on desperation to get into the industry or learn new skills.
Just wanted to share this incase anyone wanted to turn to them for rigging courses, I’d highly recommend another school or way of learning.