Here's the story: A small business owner was contacted by a Florida production company, which said it wanted to do a documentary on eco-fashion (the owner's business) that would be aired on public broadcasting and major networks. Later, the production company asked for $22,900 for production costs and $3,000 to cover airfare.

Clearly, this was not a journalistic enterprise.

The business owner did her homework on the company, read about other people's bad experiences, and even discovered a subterranean Better Business Bureau rating. And, by the way, the PBS FAQ itself mentions that it has no relationship whatsoever with the production company.

For exposing this, the Florida company is suing her for $20 million — an amount that the business owner most certainly does not have.

My interest in all this? I've received calls from these pay-to-play production companies, all from Florida, strangely enough.

They always claim to be producers working on a show hosted by some washed-up actor, politician, or sports figure. They also promise that your show will run on the big networks, including "public broadcasting", and reach tens of millions of people.

That may or may not be true, but here's a sample of the published premium airtime schedule from one pay-to-play production shop:

• Sunday, 11:30pm
• Monday, 12:30am
• Friday, 10:30pm

Their sales pitch is particularly interesting. First, they go straight to the CEO. The salesperson leaves a message and is sure to drop the name of the celebrity host as many times as possible. The CEO, necessarily dealing with such things in very broad strokes, passes it to the PR department.

Now, these pay-to-play sleazemerchants know that a PR person will ask too many questions about this "opportunity" and, in all likelihood, has an idea of how their game is played.

So, when the PR person calls the sales rep, the rep claims to be just right that moment heading into a very important meeting. The rep promises to call right back, however, that call goes right to the CEO again.

This, of course, does not help the PR person, because now it just looks to the CEO like balls were getting dropped.

The Florida Sleazemerchant crowd has contacted me six or seven times in the past twelve years. The scenario described above has happened to me every single time.

To my fellow PR pros, I can only say this: Do not, under any circumstance, waste your time or that of your company/client with these people. Media placements do not get much more low-value than this.

Hat tip to Zena Weist, who pointed this out via Twitter.