Teen Entertainment Magazine Allegedly Failed to Pay Young Writers

BOSTON - A Boston-based print and online teen magazine that became defunct sometime last year is now facing allegations that it failed compensate around 40 of its young contributors by over $100,000.

Enterteenment, a fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle magazine for teenagers, offered its young contributors scholarship money in exchange for articles.

In wage and hour, and child labor complaints to the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division, it’s now alleged that the magazine owes the teen writers an average of $5,000 each.

An initial investigation was carried out by Teens Lead @ Work (TL@W) – a program of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) led by Boston area high school students – after one on the Enterteenment contributors contacted the group. TL@W peer leader,

Tiana Golding, told Open Media Boston, “A woman named Amanda Mills started an organization called Enterteenment,” hiring “over 40 teens around the US.”

The teens were allegedly told that they were part of program, and following graduation from the program and written contributions to the magazine, then they would receive the promised scholarships.

“Now there are over 40 teens in the US looking for their scholarship money, and some have even started college already, and still don’t have their scholarship money,” said Golding, adding that, “they’ve been looking for this since 2008.”

Open Media Boston contacted the owner of the former magazine, who gave her name as Wallis Amanda Mills, but she repeatedly denied to provide a press statement saying she’s “fully aware” of the allegations made against Enterteenment.

According to the Better Business Bureau, the magazine’s address was located on 332 Newbury St. in Boston.

A video on the website for MassChallenge – a nonprofit that assists entrepreneurs – features Mills who describes Enterteenment as “dedicated to engaging and empowering teens everywhere,” explaining that a teen, “receives scholarship money in return for their editorial contributions” to the magazine.

TL@W began their investigation by contacting 40 of the contributors to Enterteenment, and encouraging them to make complaints with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.

The office’s Fair Labor Division confirmed that multiple complaints had been received, but declined to comment or confirm that it is investigating the matter.

Golding, who was part of TL@W’s investigation, explained that the teen writers alleged that Mills would continually tell them that their scholarship would come at a later point. She said, Mills “kept pushing it back, and back, and back, and they never got their money.”

In a press statement on behalf of TL@W, Adaeze Nduaguba, a Dorchester resident and one of the contributors to Enterteenment said, “I devoted hours every week to researching, writing, revising, at times, rewriting, and publishing my articles onto the website, as well as participating in conference calls.

“Despite all my work and efforts, I was manipulated and lost out on the $3,700 scholarship money that I was supposed to receive under my contract,” she continued.

According to another contributor, Alex Blair from Medfield, Mass., “I wrote over 20 articles about pro sports as the pro sports writer and I was supposed to make $3,625. “Everyone that has been wronged by all of this deserves what they were promised and they deserve justice,” he said.

Further investigation by TL@W revealed that Enterteenment, part of the private company Prom and Pageants Expositions LLC, was also related to a foundation called the Thorne Scholarship Fund set up to accept charitable contributions.

However, the group was unable to find any official documentation that the fund existed; Mills had allegedly told them it was registered in California.

In a phone interview, Executive Director of MassCOSH, Marcy Goldstein-Gelb questioned the legality of offering payment for payment for written contributions, when attaching conditions to that labor.

She said, “that doesn’t strike me … as being legal,” but added that “there were pretty well-established organizations that referred families to this (Enterteenment), so it is also sort of a lesson that if people are going to be asking young people to do work, the employers need to be credible, and so I think there’s a lot of lessons out of this.”