Asian promoters targeted by email scammers

Mirroring the rash of scams that targeted European and Latin American promoters in 2016–17, concert organisers in Asia have been warned to be on their guard after a surge in phishing emails from bogus ‘agents’.

The last few weeks have seen promoters, festivals and venues across Asia invited to offer for A-list talent, including Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Eminem and System of a Down, by scammers posing as their representatives.

Screenshots obtained by China Music Radar show emails purporting to be from Hannah Edds – assistant to Eminem’s agent, Steve Strange at X-ray Touring – and WME partner David Levy, from xraytouring.co and wmeentertainment.co, respectively (note the missing “m”s).

According to the site, the two emails originate from domains registered and hosted in Hong Kong.

The last few weeks have seen promoters, festivals and venues across Asia invited to offer for A-list talent by scammers

In May 2018, the UK’s Entertainment Agents’ Association issued a checklist for promoters following a spate of scams that saw fraudsters posing as agents for acts including System of a Down and Eminem, as well as Adele, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé and Mark Knopfler.

“Please be very careful if you get mails that don’t quite look right,” said CAA’s Emma Banks, who represents System of a Down. “Follow the common-sense steps that the Agents’ Association have suggested and don’t send any money until you have double checked that the ‘agent’ is indeed who they say they are.

“Please get on the phone to the agents you are doing business with – everything on email makes these scams so much easier for people to instigate.”

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