Hey there Antoinette, I used to belong to the forum 'Shooting People' and, for the very same reasons you describe, found myself with a reputation for being 'Bolshy'. Personally, I would rather be this than be 'shy' in my opinions regarding not being paid. I urged actors to think seriously about each unpaid role they took on and to weigh up the benefits in taking on such a role: What, other than remuneration, were they getting, were there guarantees of anything further, what was the reputation of the production company involved, did they believe that the production had been fully explored for funding etc. Such a shame that this time around, no matter how many assurances I had, how much I convinced myself that people were a lot more professional about things these days, that there WAS something to be gained from doing this, I was still foudn wanting in my judgement. It's a crying shame now that I will not do ANYTHING for NOTHING and that the genuine cases whom you can help and who can help you will suffer as a consequence of the actions of myself and many people like me. As they say, it only takes one to spoil if for the rest. The shocking thing regarding my recent experience is that they treated my losses so glibly as 'A series of misfortunes' for which I heavily chastised them for. If I could have recouped these losses, incurred as a result of their ineptitude, It would go halfway there to repairing some of the damage but they wouldn't even see to that.