Con artists have been masquerading as leading booking agent John Giddings in an email scam in which they claim to offer tour dates for Justin Timberlake.
The memo invites offers for the US star to tour in May next year and requests 32 single rooms in a minumum 4* hotel. "I'm happy to present you the following tour, of one of the greatest all-around entertainers in the history of show business," it reads. "In case you're interested or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.I look forward to hearing back from you."
Isle Of Wight Festival organiser Giddings, who represents Timberlake in the UK on behalf of Live Nation, is keen to alert promoters to the ruse.
"Every promoter in the world is emailing me saying, 'Is this true?'" Giddings told Music Week. "They keep trying to close down the website or the email address, but they keep changing it. Somebody, somewhere is going to get conned in to giving some money. It's incredible the amount of emails I've had about it, it's unbearable."
He added: "When you represent Justin Timberlake you do not need to send an email like that asking for offers. We know where we want to play if we do a tour and we know what the ticket price should be. We don’t operate like that, it's abnormal."
In 2015, would-be fraudsters claiming to be from International Talent Booking (ITB) sent out circulars claiming they were booking Pearl Jam and Aerosmith tours, while Adele's agent Lucy Dickins was also mimicked in a similar attempted scam earlier this year.
