We reported in May 2017 that three UK Jazz Festival organizers were posting  prominent warnings that there were scammers operating who were purporting to offer bookings at their festivals. Now the same thing seems to be happening again, this time with regard to Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Hence, we are re-publishing the original story with the Cheltenham link added:

– Bournemouth have put up a warning HERE

– Edinburgh have put up an alert HERE

– There is a note on the bottom of the London Jazz Festival homepage HERE

– The alert on the Cheltenham Festivals site is HERE


Kim Macari has written to us explaining the matter in detail. She writes:

“There is currently a scam offering bookings to overseas artists at EFG London Jazz Festival and Edinburgh Jazz Festival. They are copy and pasting information from the festival websites and offering gigs, complete with contracts. They ask artists to arrange their own work permits at a cost of $400 and direct them to their ‘Work Permit Agent’ Evelyn Scott to arrange this. If artists make this payment, they lose the money but also give their information to the scammers to use in identity theft.

The gig offers look legitimate enough that overseas musicians without working knowledge of the festival teams could be easily convinced of their authenticity.”