We've recently spent a lot of time dealing with a producer/manager/agent for a long booking in the summer. The links he sent us to his various label, artist management, publishing and other pages checked out on the surface, and his personal blog made impressive reading.
So we were over the moon when his initial 4 week enquiry turned into an 8 consecutive week deal, with 4 weeks each for 2 of his artists. For such a long booking with such a well connected individual and the prospect of further bookings from him, we of course offered a reduced price.....
Having negotiated details, he wanted to pay us our 50% deposit to confirm the booking. This is when we got very angry.....
He tells us we are to receive a £2000 transfer from his artist's agent, take out our £1350 and transfer the £650 balance to him via his paypal account. He also tells us that we will receive the balance at the end of the 4 week session, not on arrival.....
Several things wrong here:....
· the big one is that we're guessing his artist doesn't know they're paying over the odds....
· if he is going to charge for his services he should do so openly with his artist....
· he expects to pay half the 8 week fee when the booking is for only 4 weeks....
· we're a residential studio so have additional running costs to cover during their stay....
· we'd agreed he could have unsupervised access to the studio, so at any time he could download work in progress....
· during the negotiations he's been very nitpicky and we guess he'll be the same here, finding some excuse to further reduce the price....
· and the other biggie is that we now wouldn't trust him with a bargepole....
We replied telling him that we would not agree to these conditions and why.....
In his subsequent reply to us he told us that the 4k he quoted included accommodation and transfers so there was nothing untoward. Trying to make his actions look above board just adds insult to injury, as our £2700 price for the 4 week stay (as part of 8) INCLUDES accommodation, and the airport transfers would have been no more than £100 to be paid to the driver on arrival. So, he's scamming his artist to the tune of £1300.....
Needless to say, the whole thing's off. We can be flexible but are not prepared to take part in fraudulent activities.....
We've now delved deeper and found out a few more things:....
· The majority of the links in his numerous blogs and other sites we've discovered do not check out (Oops! Google Chrome.../ Not Found / go to totally unrelated sites)....
· With only one or two exceptions, if you visit the personal pages of the numerous industry names he drops on his own sites, there's no mention of him at all....
· When you read about him on the internet it all sounds glowing, until you realise he's written it himself....
.. ..
We're gutted to have to turn down £5400 worth of much needed business. Worse though is that we dread to think how much artists who sign to him in any capacity will stand to lose, not only in money but probably also in lost time and opportunities.....
Moral of all this – be VERY careful what you sign and who you sign it with. There are some bad people out there who are very clever at reeling you in, particularly if you are younger and less experienced than we are.....
You should be also very aware that there are a lot of people out there who promise you fame and fortune for a price. The legit ones will usually take a commission from the money they help you earn as opposed to taking money up front before they have done anything for you.....
Several people have said that we should name and shame this individual, but despite having the emails as proof, we do not want to enter a war of words on the internet. If however you're an artist and suspect it's him you're dealing with, you can private message us his name and if it is indeed him, we will tell you.....
Thanks for your comment Phil. No, definitely not you! Caron http://montesaaudio.com