Arizona Band Says They Were Scammed Out Of Cash By El Paso Man
Scylla, a band from Arizona, has recently gone viral for posting a story about how an El Paso man allegedly scammed them out of money for a tour.
Scylla is a melodic metal from Arizona that's been around since 2012. The band posted a story on their Facebook on Cinco de Mayo that has gone viral about how an El Paso promoter allegedly scammed the band out of almost $2,000 earlier this year. Since we haven't heard from the promoter and this is the story according to the band, we are not going to publish the man's name or the company he says he owns. But here is a little bit of Scylla's story for you:
Back in January the band says they were contacted by a "promoter" they say they built a close relationship with. He said that he had worked on alleged tours with bands like Trivium and Periphery and wanted to invest in their band Scylla. He also said that he wanted to manage the band as well. The next time he contacted the band he said he had tour offers for the them and mentioned various tours with Suicide Silence and even Warped Tour. He told the band there was a $1,500 buy in for the tour but that the money was refundable and that he would cover the rest of the costs for the band. The agreed and gave him the money, quit their drops and even depleted their savings to purchase more merchandise, CDs and more.Scylla says the man encouraged them to do these things and made them think they were making the right decisions for their career.
The tour was suppose to begin in February and that time came and went. The band said that the man told them later that the agency he was working through wanted the agreement changed which led to the band being dropped. Here's more of the what the band had to say in their Facebook post:
March starts coming to an end and then (man) starts mentioning a comedy tour that he wants to put us on. We tell him we’ll agree to it if he gives us back our $1500 buy in since he didn’t uphold his end of things initially. He agreed to that and told us he’d transfer us back the money soon. Well, weeks go by with nothing and we start questioning him about when he’s going to transfer our money back since we all are now very short on funds and also need that money to fund our next release. He then claims he is waiting on The Circle Talent Agency to refund all of his money so he can refund us, so we continue to wait. In the meantime, he tells us he will pay us a living stipend due to the tours falling through and has us send him itemized monthly expense lists for each of us. Of course, we never saw a dime that he promised us.
So, he then sends us another contract about the comedy tour, same guarantee, for over two months which includes an agreement from him that he will transfer our money back to us by April 17th.
April 17th comes and there is no word from (man), no money transferred, no anything. Another week goes by and there is no word from him. Then, this Monday comes and he posts about how he will not be reachable by phone, social media, etc and is under pending investigation.
Lastly, today we decided to reach out to both Victory Records and The Circle Talent Agency and they both confirmed that they have never made any contact with (man) before, thus proving that (man) lied to us from the beginning.
You can read more about this story at Metal Sucks and on the Scylla Facebook page. The band says they aren't looking for a GoFundMe or anything like that but just want to warn other bands of this individual as well as just to be cautious of scammers out there.