Sites that charge freelancers for the right to apply for jobs get pretty short shrift on here. Rightly so because these companies (the likes of mandy.com and Production Base) are doing little more than sucking money out of the pockets of industry workers while providing precisely zero value along the way, given that almost all the jobs they advertise are also available on free-to-use social media sites.

However at least companies like these – gutter inhabitants that they are – are honest about what they are doing, picking your pocket with upfront fees for the trade they peddle.

Not so a company called “Production Hive” however.

This set-up (run by former Production Base employee, Matt Williams) likes to ply its trade on the back of some very crafty subterfuge, on the back of a lie that freelancers “can register, create a professional profile, upload a CV and reel, and browse, search and apply for jobs for FREE” (its Linkedin page), that it is a “FREE online crewing & networking community for freelancers” (its Facebook page) and that you can “apply to our job listings Film & TV job listings FREE” (its own site)

Not remotely true.

Because what the company doesn’t choose to tell you is that you only get one free-to-apply to job per month, and after that it’s a princely £10 a month to apply for anything else that is advertised on the site (which you only find out when you try to make a second application). And given that the jobs on there are free to apply to on the advertising company’s own sites or social media pages, or on other free to use places, paying Production Hive to apply for them is pretty much akin to tearing up crisp fivers and chucking them down the toilet.

I asked Matt Williams why he is claiming his offering is free for freelancers when it clearly isn’t. He had nothing to offer on that front however. It seems he is happy for his site to continue to hide these charges from immediate public view in the hope that he can lure in some unwary freelancers who might assume that if he says that all jobs are free to apply to on his site, that that might actually be true.

It isn’t, so watch out. Production Hive – AVOID!