Once in San Diego, women were met by employees who had signed non-disclosure agreements forbidding them from mentioning the name GirlsDoPorn. They were allegedly instructed to call the company Plus One Media, or deny that the videos produced would be published online. The women were to stay in four-star hotels, where filming took place. Additionally, women have alleged being lied to in various ways by Garcia to convince them to enter his apartment: in some cases, he said that the women should stay at his apartment before he drove them to the airport the next morning; in others, he feigned needing to stop at his apartment and suggested that the women should come inside briefly.

Women in the 2016 lawsuit were hurried to sign contracts written in hard-to-understand legal terminology, sometimes being told the contracts were needed for tax purposes. The contract did not mention “GirlsDoPorn”. The contracts involving the 22 plaintiffs also did not mention “GirlsDoPorn” anywhere in the entire document, as per court records. There were reports that company employees got the women drunk before signing, or smoked marijuana with them, or offered them cocaine. An FBI complaint said that the company prevented the women from keeping copies of their contracts. In the lawsuit’s 187-page proposed statement of decision, the release form is described as purposefully long and vague, written with an intent to obscure the true nature and character of the video’s distribution.

Filming lasted up to seven hours, in contrast to the thirty-minute shoot that the women were told to expect. It begins with an interview in which the subject is asked personal and sexual questions, after being coached on how to answer. There are reports of Garcia being verbally abusive. During sex, some women reportedly experienced vaginal bleeding, while another said that she vomited in her mouth and began choking due to the violence of the sex. Accounts of the women document that if they expressed pain or refused to continue, they were told that it was too late to withdraw, and in some cases the exit was physically blocked by the men. Some women were also threatened with cancellation of the return flight or being asked to pay back the flight costs if they tried to renege on filming or refused to shoot an additional scene. Filming for GirlsDoToys took place during the same trips.

The United States Department of Justice reported that “some [of the women] were sexually assaulted and in at least one case raped”. It has been reported that Garcia had sex with some of the women before or after shooting, or in the midst of shooting, after asking the cameraman to leave.

A former employee testified that only 50% of women received the amount of money they were promised. The court case found that women were frequently told that their pay would be reduced immediately after stripping naked, despite never being told that their pay was contingent. Another frequently used tactic was to cut pay after the scene was shot by citing body flaws even though the models had sent nude photos clearly showing whatever blemishes and tattoos they had. One woman was allegedly paid $400 after having being promised $2,000, and also locked out of the hotel room where she was expecting to stay.

what an ethical business