As everyone who's written about Heather has stated, she has NO money. She rides the wave of bad loans, promises pay, and fails to deliver time and time again. It is absolutely not in her bank account, and what she DOES secure is total blood money, and gone in a wink with expensive parties and huge trips. I worked for Heather back in the day as a freelancer on her startup social media business. I had been advised before to bring on "serious" legal control and "make sure she signed the papers", so I did just that... poor me, a starving girl with rent to pay, couldn't say no to working from home. When she interviewed me at her place, she seemed extremely genuine and business-savvy. Every time we met up, she was always acted professional. She quickly proved to be the exact opposite (I'm still trying to decide if she has a compulsive lying problem and genuinely believes her own lies... or if she's just a true bred scammer).
Behind Heather's back, my few coworkers and I got really close, and we began realizing how utterly RIDICULOUS it was that none of us were being paid on time. In the short span that I worked for her, I sent invoices repeatedly and did not ONCE get my money on time. None of us did, ever. Once: my coworker noticed a transaction TO Heather's account FROM hers one day for a total of $15000. She was livid and stunned, so ALL of us changed our banking info, and one of the other girls stopped working for her. We should've all stopped, of course, but the money WAS coming - just never when she said it would come. Since we were all in cahoots with one another, we would laugh and mock the lame excuses she'd make ("OMG! Sending right away!" or "I will personally see that it's done. So sorry." – COMPLETE bogas). She became a laughingstock among her employees, but also an acute source of stress. I was also copied onto MANY emails from the clients she would "pick up" for months at a time. She would promise to revamp their websites, make their brands beautiful, and kickstart incredible Instagram accounts to make them popular. BUT she was just making small businesses pay MASSIVE UPFRONT fees (seriously, around $20k), then having her employees steal Instagram images from popular accounts and reposting them, and leave the websites out to dry.
The Instagrams never looked good, the customers were always unhappy and always sending emails telling her to fix it. Everything was always unfinished. Customers would rage and try to back out, but it was too late – their money was gone and their loans would set their companies back big time. The other thing is, as an employee, Heather always tried to make the work sound legitimate and ongoing, but it was SO fake. People hated her pretty quickly. We saw all the legal issues and the backfiring and companies getting mad. Anyway, it's been awhile now, but I hear something about a website and an eBook, so whatever you do, steer clear of her. She is still on the prowl, and shockingly is not behind bars. Although I hear that she's had a few small claims threats... not surprised. Hoping someone manages to get her with something bigger so these companies can stop being destroyed.
Before I met Heather, I was warned about Heather. By a friend who helped operate a magazine for several years. By a sound mixer who had been screwed over on one of her productions. By at booker at a top modeling agency who told me her name was blacklisted by 2-3 OTHER agencies. But still, I was a desperate freelancer and $400 is $400.
My personal experience isn't that interesting. Heather brought me on for a project, I did the project and delivered the product and after (literally) six months of bugging her, I sent her some small claims court PDFs I found online. Miraciously, she found the time to return my emais and I finally got paid.
A more interesting story is what happened to my close friend who was brought on to shoot a lookbook for a Yucatan-based fashion startup. Heather hit her up telling her it was a super ultra low budget shoot for a super sweet startup, a lookbook and a linesheet for a set photographer budget of 1k. Ok, she tells her, and they start shooting.
About halfway through the process, Heather disappears. The client starts panicking, circumvents Heather who was operating as a sort of middle-person and contacts the photographer. Through several days of back and forth, we discover that the brand had paid Heather over 10k USD to produce the shoot, which means she took a 9k cut off the top and reserved the last measly 1k to hire some freelancers for her "super ultra low budget" startup shoot.
Heather never reappears. The photographer doesn't get paid her 1k, and she finishes the project with the brand directly to make sure they get their content together by their launch date.
All this while her Instgram is lighting up announcing her newest venture selling an e-book or something on social success. I wonder if there's anyting in there about treating the people you work with respect and common decency.
Heather Catania Reviews
As everyone who's written about Heather has stated, she has NO money. She rides the wave of bad loans, promises pay, and fails to deliver time and time again. It is absolutely not in her bank account, and what she DOES secure is total blood money, and gone in a wink with expensive parties and huge trips. I worked for Heather back in the day as a freelancer on her startup social media business. I had been advised before to bring on "serious" legal control and "make sure she signed the papers", so I did just that... poor me, a starving girl with rent to pay, couldn't say no to working from home. When she interviewed me at her place, she seemed extremely genuine and business-savvy. Every time we met up, she was always acted professional. She quickly proved to be the exact opposite (I'm still trying to decide if she has a compulsive lying problem and genuinely believes her own lies... or if she's just a true bred scammer).
Behind Heather's back, my few coworkers and I got really close, and we began realizing how utterly RIDICULOUS it was that none of us were being paid on time. In the short span that I worked for her, I sent invoices repeatedly and did not ONCE get my money on time. None of us did, ever. Once: my coworker noticed a transaction TO Heather's account FROM hers one day for a total of $15000. She was livid and stunned, so ALL of us changed our banking info, and one of the other girls stopped working for her. We should've all stopped, of course, but the money WAS coming - just never when she said it would come. Since we were all in cahoots with one another, we would laugh and mock the lame excuses she'd make ("OMG! Sending right away!" or "I will personally see that it's done. So sorry." – COMPLETE bogas). She became a laughingstock among her employees, but also an acute source of stress. I was also copied onto MANY emails from the clients she would "pick up" for months at a time. She would promise to revamp their websites, make their brands beautiful, and kickstart incredible Instagram accounts to make them popular. BUT she was just making small businesses pay MASSIVE UPFRONT fees (seriously, around $20k), then having her employees steal Instagram images from popular accounts and reposting them, and leave the websites out to dry.
The Instagrams never looked good, the customers were always unhappy and always sending emails telling her to fix it. Everything was always unfinished. Customers would rage and try to back out, but it was too late – their money was gone and their loans would set their companies back big time. The other thing is, as an employee, Heather always tried to make the work sound legitimate and ongoing, but it was SO fake. People hated her pretty quickly. We saw all the legal issues and the backfiring and companies getting mad. Anyway, it's been awhile now, but I hear something about a website and an eBook, so whatever you do, steer clear of her. She is still on the prowl, and shockingly is not behind bars. Although I hear that she's had a few small claims threats... not surprised. Hoping someone manages to get her with something bigger so these companies can stop being destroyed.
Before I met Heather, I was warned about Heather. By a friend who helped operate a magazine for several years. By a sound mixer who had been screwed over on one of her productions. By at booker at a top modeling agency who told me her name was blacklisted by 2-3 OTHER agencies. But still, I was a desperate freelancer and $400 is $400.
My personal experience isn't that interesting. Heather brought me on for a project, I did the project and delivered the product and after (literally) six months of bugging her, I sent her some small claims court PDFs I found online. Miraciously, she found the time to return my emais and I finally got paid.
A more interesting story is what happened to my close friend who was brought on to shoot a lookbook for a Yucatan-based fashion startup. Heather hit her up telling her it was a super ultra low budget shoot for a super sweet startup, a lookbook and a linesheet for a set photographer budget of 1k. Ok, she tells her, and they start shooting.
About halfway through the process, Heather disappears. The client starts panicking, circumvents Heather who was operating as a sort of middle-person and contacts the photographer. Through several days of back and forth, we discover that the brand had paid Heather over 10k USD to produce the shoot, which means she took a 9k cut off the top and reserved the last measly 1k to hire some freelancers for her "super ultra low budget" startup shoot.
Heather never reappears. The photographer doesn't get paid her 1k, and she finishes the project with the brand directly to make sure they get their content together by their launch date.
All this while her Instgram is lighting up announcing her newest venture selling an e-book or something on social success. I wonder if there's anyting in there about treating the people you work with respect and common decency.