Thieves Impersonating Legitimate Production Companies

| PERG News: March 2025 |

Within the past six months PERG members have noted some recurring trends with regards to equipment rented and not returned. There have been a series of thefts and attempted thefts in which the thieves impersonated legitimate production companies. In a couple of cases, they posed as wedding photography companies, using the name and company name of real wedding photographers. Steve Kopacz runs Wild Light Films out of Florida but shoots weddings all over the country. He owns his own FX-3 and Canon cameras and never rents equipment. Nevertheless, his name and company appear in three questionable customer alerts filed this year. The thieves target websites, like Steve’s, that provides no direct contact information. This means the rental company cannot verify the phone number against that of the “client” who called them, nor the address, or email. On these websites communication is only provided via a webform, so there is no immediate way to verify the renter is from the company they say they are from.

PERG has verified that Steve is in fact the owner of the Wild Light Films website, and after speaking with him about the problem, Steve added the tag below to his website.

PERG recommends:

• Consider it a RED FLAG if the website does not provide contact information that matches the “client’s” information.
• Be aware of the wedding photography MO.
• Check email addresses and phone numbers for EXACT matches. Each of these recent thefts used email addresses similar to but not exactly like that on the company website. 
• Have the potential client email you directly from the posted website/email address and or phone number.  Or have the potential client direct message the rental house from the actual social media outlet (i.e. Instagram). Always contact the actual company some way, before proceeding.
• If the email is the company name with extra letters EX: John Pictures - johnpicturesllc@gmail.com, email johnpictures@gmail.com separately to verify their requested rental

Other red flags that members have noted in relation to these theft attempts:

• Non-rental company references or rental references that only operate on peer-to-peer marketplaces.
• Short term insurance policy or a long-term policy that starts within days of the rental.
• No push back or haggling about the rental rate.

Help protect the industry; always post a QCA or Theft report. The perpetrator will immediately target someone else if you turn down a rental. If you suspect a fraudster, report them through RENTAL GUARD Questionable Customer Alert (QCA) and help protect our industry. Theft affects everyone, even if they don’t succeed in getting your equipment. No one needs upward pressure on insurance rates.