Music Scam Alert

What if I’m Not Sure it’s a Scam?

That’s exactly what we’re here for! If something feels off, you’re probably picking up on exactly what’s going on. But of course, the fear of missing out on some incredible opportunity is often what drives artists to put money down without really knowing what they’re getting into.

We always have your back, so don’t hesitate to reach out if someone has approached you with an offer that doesn’t feel right. You can inquire about a potential scam the same way you would report one: By filling out our Reports Form.

Additionally, the report form (linked to the button above) will ask you to specify whether you’re reporting or inquiring. You can opt for “report” if you’re pretty sure it’s a scam, or choose “inquiring” if you have no idea, but you’re considering putting money down for whatever the service or company is.

We’ll treat reports and inquiries the same way. Usually when someone thinks something is a scam, they end up being right about that.

How Do You Know What’s a Scam?

Generally it just takes a few simple search techniques to get to the bottom of things. However, some cases are more complex than others. When necessary, we use OSINT and other, more robust investigative measures, ensuring an efficient path to exposing bad actors. Either way, you can rest assured that nothing slips by us.

Do You Answer Back if I Report a Scam?

Yes, you will be sent an email with a full report, regardless of whether or not we write about the scam you reported. That report will be full of useful information, and steps you can take to remedy the situation if if you’ve already paid for the service in question and it does turn out to be a scam. This is part of our victim’s assistance efforts, which we spend a great deal of time on and are very proud of.

Just note that we will always investigate anyone or any company you report to us, and we are always extremely thorough. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we are going to publicly post an article about it. We have a few guidelines we follow when it comes to the kinds of scams we write about:

1. We don’t write published articles about “one-offs” which are company’s that don’t typically scam people, but were personally motivated to do so in some specific case. For instance, if you sleep with your manager’s wife, and he steals your royalties because of it, we will research it but won’t write about it. We strive to publish articles which have the potential for major impact, and can prevent a lot of people from getting victimized by it. If it’s a one-off we will issue you a private report, but will not publish an article concerning the fraudster.
   
2. We don’t write articles about individuals. We go after companies and corporations. The reason for this is, companies and corporations operate on a larger scale; they tend to have a reach outside of a small personal network or regional location. A person, however, will generally stick to one small region or just a small network of people to select his or her marks. Again, we will investigate any person you report, and we will give you a full write-up about them via email, but we won’t publish an article about it, because is has a low potential for large positive impact.
   
3. We are not in the business of smear campaigns or gossip columns. If you have a vendetta against someone for any reason, or if you are a competitor trying to get your competition to be taken down via one of our articles, just know we will be able to detect that, and we won’t move forward with a published article under those pretenses.

How Long Does it Take to Get Answers?

We are a small team of four volunteer researchers, but we’re incredibly committed to our work at MSA. If we have a lot of open reports at the time you report someone to us, we may take a while to get to it.

Sometimes that’s just two weeks, and sometimes it’s closer to two months. But we spend every spare hour we have on these research projects, attempting to get everyone the answers they need as fast as possible. However, we are all working on this as a secondary job, and an unpaid one at that. Which is fine by us.

But it does make it difficult to hire enough people to really do the job quickly and efficiently, since it’s a pretty tough sell to get people interested in hard, dangerous, stressful, thankless, unpaid jobs. But those who have come to work for us have been incredibly devoted, and we are here to stay.

When you report a potential scam to us, please let us know if you are reporting a service which are considering paying for, as we will prioritize your case and attempt to get you the answers you need within a few days, or less if possible. Just tell us in the comment section of your report that you’d like the report marked urgent. There is never any charge for our investigative work, regardless of whether or not your request a rush.

We would always prefer to save you from a scam, rather than just inform you of it after the fact. So if you’re seriously considering a paid service or promotional package, and you’re not sure if the company or person is trustworthy, report them to us and select “inquiring” on the report, then ask us to mark it as urgent.

We’ll try to get back to you with a quick trust-report as soon as possible, so you can make these financial decisions with the greatest possible clarity and peace of mind.