Is this a probable scam?

[zoo]

Hey all,

So this morning I woke up to an email from an A&R from Atlantic Records, claiming they are looking for new talent and and that this A&R's "colleagues" had shown her my music, and thus she was contacting me.

Now straight off the bat, I would find it pretty suspect that her colleagues showed her my music...seeing as I hardly promote my music at all...and have hardly any presence online or in my city. I tweet a little bit, but nothing major. I'm still mostly focusing on the actual music.

Anyway, the email ended with an Atlantic Records logo - and had the whole "Confidentiality" legal essay at the end, in this sense the email did look legit.

I Googled the A&R and everything has come up pretty honest. Whoever the email is claiming to be certainly does exist.

I emailed the A&R back asking two initial questions from which I hope to get a reply - and then I will follow those initial questions up with some more more complex questions in order to try figure out if I'm being messed around. On top of this I've also tweeted this A&R's legit account to see if she is sending out emails off the email address which I am in contact with.

I've checked out her name with "scam" on Google, and the email address in question - I found one hit of a guy who ended up flying to London to try meet up with this A&R to showcase his music, needless to say he was scammed heavily.

I'm posting this here and providing as much detail as possible in the hope to get some advice from some more experienced members of this forum as I have only been making beats just over a year and have no industry sense as of yet!

 

[IPM Music]

I found one hit of a guy who ended up flying to London to try meet up with this A&R to showcase his music, needless to say he was scammed heavily.

What do you mean by that? They asked for money up front? They didn't meet with him at all? How was he scammed?

 

[zoo]

What do you mean by that? They asked for money up front? They didn't meet with him at all? How was he scammed?

He was living in France, had to pay for a ticket for an event in London for $250.00....got a flight over there...had contact with the A&R..postponed his flight. She gave him a new number which he could not reach, so he went to the studios where he was meant to be having the private meeting on the proposed date where the receptionist told him they did not run private events and that he was not the first person to come through their doors with some ticket to some random event that definitely was not being held in their studio.

Now, not that I would ever be foolish enough to fall for something as simple as the above, but I just want to know what precautions I should take anyway, you can rest assured I will not be giving this A&R any money up front whatsoever.

Actually, while on the subject of potential scams, I also recently had contact from this dude: https://twitter.com/WAYNOBEATS saying he has major contacts and he likes my music..he wanted $80.00 up front, I told him I wasn't interested unless he believed in my music enough to take commission based on his success at connecting me up with placements rather than an upfront fee. He vanished fairly quickly, but again, I'd be curious to see what people think about this. He had a post up on "thisis50.com" and stuff.

 

[deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup]

You may have just answered your own question. Hit the A&R back and if it goes the route of her talking about a "showcase" you need to invest money to be a part of, it's the same damn scam.

If they're really interested, they'd pay for the trip if they even needed to meet in person. They'd more than likely want beats emailed and work out payment if something is used(or not and explain why they ain't giving you no money, but sell you on the opportunity. That's still not a "scam"). But if they askin you for money, don't give them a ghat damn dime. Music 101.