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A fraudster impersonated a representative of the Las Vegas rockers to dupe a US arena into paying an advance
By James Hanley on 24 Sep 2024
Imagine Dragons
image © Eric Ray Davidson
A venue in the US has been conned out of $250,000 (€225,000) by a fraudster posing as an agent for Imagine Dragons.
The Town Toyota Center (TTC) in Wenatchee, Washington State, was introduced by its longtime booking agency, Los Angeles-based Harmony Artists, to an agent claiming to be James Whitting from Wasserman Music, Imagine Dragons’ live representative.
The publicly-funded 4,300-cap multi-purpose arena, which has previously hosted acts such as Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson and BB King, paid the advance via wire transfer on 23 August this year, with the understanding it was reserving the band for a show on 21 June 2025.
“About three weeks later, the TTC discovered that the person claiming to be James Whitting was an impersonator,” says a statement from the venue’s GM Mark Miller. “It promptly contacted its booking agent, bank and its own insurance provider, with Harmony Artists currently working with its insurance company to reimburse the TTC.
“At present, the TTC anticipates full reimbursement from its booking agent.”
The American group have a concert booked at Stadium Diego Armando Maradona in Naples, Italy, on the date in question as part of their 2025 European stadium tour.
“We are not only working to recover funds, but also analysing what actions and precautions can be taken on our end”
“We are fully aware of the gravity of the recent events that were determined to be concert fraud, and that as the community’s building these events need to be addressed and reviewed,” reads a further statement from the TTC. “This is not an issue that we are taking lightly, and we are not only working to recover funds, but also analysing what actions and precautions can be taken on our end to hopefully prevent this from happening again in the future.
“With that being said, there will be no further public comment on the situation at hand due to ongoing investigations and potential litigation.”
Imagine Dragons are represented worldwide by Whitting and Corrie Martin at Wasserman, which has not commented on the story.
IQ reported last month that scammers had been masquerading as CAA agents, claiming to be booking tours for Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber, with messages sent by fraudsters from multiple random email addresses.
Back in 2018 meanwhile, the UK’s Entertainment Agents’ Association issued a checklist for promoters following a sharp increase in the number of bogus emails purporting to come from leading booking agents.
If unsure of an agent’s identity, the association encourages promoters to adopt the following steps:
1. Check the email address is correct – in particular the email domain – and if in any doubt call the agency to confirm it. Do not use the telephone number on the email
2. Check the artist’s website for any conflicting touring plans
3. Make sure you have full contact details of the agent with which you are working and speak to them on the phone at least once
4. Before sending a deposit, call the agency to confirm the booking and check their account details
5. Check with promoters in other markets to verify the artist is touring in that region at that time
6. If an offer is accepted and seems too good to be true, it probably is
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