Brian Bergeron

Vote HERE

I recently received an email from someone claiming to be a concert programmer from Nigeria. He said that he was working on the third year of a music festival and was interested in having my band submit for consideration for the event. In the past they had large acts perform: Beyonce, Jay-Z, Shakira to name a few, but they have decided to go for smaller acts this time around—‘acts that cost a maximum of $30,000.’
I submitted my material and was accepted within 24 hours of submission for the event and was offered the maximum guarantee. As a commission for the booking, I was to pay the concert programmer $3000 or 10% of the booking fee, which is pretty standard and I am currently awaiting the contracts and all of the information.
Of course I am super skeptical and the idea is almost laughable. I have researched both the concert programmer AND the concert festival and both exist and appear legit. However, the one caveat is the e-mail and some of the wording of the e-mails. The programmer seems reputable in Africa, claiming to be “Africa’s #1 Record Label” but the red flag is the e-mail that it is sent from: a Gmail account and a Yahoo account. It clearly points to someone trying to be a fraud and represent himself as someone whom he is not.
It’s funny actually because I recently watched a show on MSNBC called “How To Catch and ID Thief” that was based on “How To Catch A Predator” and a lot of ID thieves work out of countries like Nigeria—countries that aren’t necessarily likely to work with the US to catch these people and far enough outside of the States that it is difficult to go after them. Now, I have suspicions that I am being scanned…It’s kind of funny, really.
It reminds me of another instance this summer when I was being courted by someone at Faneuil Hall that wanted to be my manager. He wasn’t a bad dude and I won’t use his name because I’m not trying to slander him but he was after me for a month—making promises and painting a picture of me being a star—and then just like that I dropped off his radar. He still has a website and remains active but he stopped returning my calls and e-mails. It was very queer.
I don’t know why I’m so attractive to people who are looking to give me a run around. The first example (if it is in fact a scam) is looking to sucker me out of money but the second guy never even made a move to get anything from me. THAT was the weirdest thing of all. He never tried to get money or anything from me, he just strung me along for a month or so and like that, he was gone.
I hope I’m not coming off as being naïve. I know that so much about the industry is complete happenstance and luck and that you have to put yourself in a position to get lucky. So, when something weird happens I like to feel it out. I just found these two instances extremely interesting. I don’t know the point of really writing about this but I figured I’d get it down before I forget it.