aoron
New member
Written by Sir. O:
"As a young aspiring indie singer/song writer I am always on the look for opportunities to promote my music. So, imagine my enthusiasm when I discovered that an executive from Universal Records Group began following me on Twitter. Being noticed by an executive from a major label could be the big break for me!
So, I browsed quickly through UMGExecutive latest tweets, and there it was, my golden ticket. We are still accepting demos! the executive wrote, please send through DemoSubmissions.com.
I instantly clicked the link and got to the web site. It looked very professional with lots of affiliate's logos and a long list of happy clients.
It said: Send demos to 10 leading record labels for only 25$ or 50$ for 100 labels.
I wanted to send my demos right away, you know, hit it while it's hot, but being indie artist means money is a stretch. The UMGExecutive must have like my music, so I thought, otherwise he wouldn't have followed me on twitter, and if he likes me maybe I can pitch my music only to his label without paying any fees.
So, I jiggled my keyboard trying to find an email address or some other contact details. Guitar is my main instrument, but apparently I'm not so bad with computers either, cause few minutes after googling some stuff I realized that UMGExecutive is a fraud, and DemoSubmissions.com is nothing but a big fat disgusting scam.
How did I discover that?
Well, using a simple tool called search image by image. I searched the @UMGExecutive tweeter's profile image, thinking it might lead me to a personal web page, but it led me to another profile on tweeter. The other profile had tons of selfies while my UMG guy had only this one photo. The deceit was already obvious but I refused to believe it, so I kept playing Sherlock and found more incriminating evidence, like the fact that DemoSubmission.com is also called Demoexxpress.com (notice the two Xs) and that all the images on Demoexxpress.com are copied from photo bank. I tracked down UMGExecutive's (who also goes by David Sanders) responds to several indie musicians and all of them were the same copy & paste phrase with a link to the scammy web site of course.
(some of you guys are proudly quoting him on your facebook and web!)
I found a linkedIn profile of one John Raye, supposedly the president of Demo Express, but he has zero connections. Zip. Nada. You would expect someone like that to have zillion connections to labels and media organizations, right?
Last but not least I found a rip-off report about that scam, meaning I am not to only one to uncover this nasty scheme.
So there it was, my big break, my golden ticket, smashed to pieces. Lying in front of me like a stiff corpse of a beloved pet.
At first I was deeply disappointed, although somehow relieved because I didn't send any money.
Once my Scam report to Reverbnation, over a week ago, got no response - I decided I have to write this article and warn you all from these scumbags. They feast on our naivety. Beware fellow musicians; don't send money carelessly to some shiny operation even if they promise you the world, please double check each opportunity that comes by. It doesn't take much. You don't have to be a detective, all you need is to do is run down some simple searches and remember, if it's too good to be true it's most likely not true.
Cheers,
Sir. O"
http://Sir-O.com
"As a young aspiring indie singer/song writer I am always on the look for opportunities to promote my music. So, imagine my enthusiasm when I discovered that an executive from Universal Records Group began following me on Twitter. Being noticed by an executive from a major label could be the big break for me!
So, I browsed quickly through UMGExecutive latest tweets, and there it was, my golden ticket. We are still accepting demos! the executive wrote, please send through DemoSubmissions.com.
I instantly clicked the link and got to the web site. It looked very professional with lots of affiliate's logos and a long list of happy clients.
It said: Send demos to 10 leading record labels for only 25$ or 50$ for 100 labels.
I wanted to send my demos right away, you know, hit it while it's hot, but being indie artist means money is a stretch. The UMGExecutive must have like my music, so I thought, otherwise he wouldn't have followed me on twitter, and if he likes me maybe I can pitch my music only to his label without paying any fees.
So, I jiggled my keyboard trying to find an email address or some other contact details. Guitar is my main instrument, but apparently I'm not so bad with computers either, cause few minutes after googling some stuff I realized that UMGExecutive is a fraud, and DemoSubmissions.com is nothing but a big fat disgusting scam.
How did I discover that?
Well, using a simple tool called search image by image. I searched the @UMGExecutive tweeter's profile image, thinking it might lead me to a personal web page, but it led me to another profile on tweeter. The other profile had tons of selfies while my UMG guy had only this one photo. The deceit was already obvious but I refused to believe it, so I kept playing Sherlock and found more incriminating evidence, like the fact that DemoSubmission.com is also called Demoexxpress.com (notice the two Xs) and that all the images on Demoexxpress.com are copied from photo bank. I tracked down UMGExecutive's (who also goes by David Sanders) responds to several indie musicians and all of them were the same copy & paste phrase with a link to the scammy web site of course.
(some of you guys are proudly quoting him on your facebook and web!)
I found a linkedIn profile of one John Raye, supposedly the president of Demo Express, but he has zero connections. Zip. Nada. You would expect someone like that to have zillion connections to labels and media organizations, right?
Last but not least I found a rip-off report about that scam, meaning I am not to only one to uncover this nasty scheme.
So there it was, my big break, my golden ticket, smashed to pieces. Lying in front of me like a stiff corpse of a beloved pet.
At first I was deeply disappointed, although somehow relieved because I didn't send any money.
Once my Scam report to Reverbnation, over a week ago, got no response - I decided I have to write this article and warn you all from these scumbags. They feast on our naivety. Beware fellow musicians; don't send money carelessly to some shiny operation even if they promise you the world, please double check each opportunity that comes by. It doesn't take much. You don't have to be a detective, all you need is to do is run down some simple searches and remember, if it's too good to be true it's most likely not true.
Cheers,
Sir. O"
http://Sir-O.com
