“Is TAXI.com a Rip Off, Scam, or Legitimate?” If I could make a nickel for every time I’ve seen that question asked on online forums and blogs over the last 22 years, I could probably put one of my kids through college on the income.
People tend to believe what they read. But on the Internet, you may not know who the person is posting the opinion, or if they’ve even been a TAXI member, or have ever used the service! We’ve also seen negative posts about TAXI we suspect come from copycat companies trying to discredit us.
Playing dirty?
How would you feel if other musicians posted false, misleading, or negative comments about you or your music, just to make more sales for their music? We’re amazed that the companies that actually kick back a healthy portion of their submission fees to the companies and individuals who run listings on their sites would resort to such tactics.
We recently found a dozen so-called “listings” on one of the top copycat sites, that were actually copied nearly word-for-word from legitimate TAXI Listings, with just a few edits to make them look a little different! The point is: how carefully can these TAXI copycats be checking out the companies they run listings for, if the listings are fakes?
Even worse, if the companies making up those listings know that they’re fakes, and they’re doing it to deceive the musicians who submit their music in good faith, isn’t that fraud?
None-the-less, the point of this post is whether or not TAXI is a scam.
How to Detect (and avoid) Music Scams
One of the best articles published on the subject is written by award winning TV and Video Game composer, Zircon. Take a few minutes and read his blog post about “How to Detect (and avoid) Music Scams.” It could save you thousands of dollars in wasted submission fees and lost time.
Quoting the article, “TAXI is an example of a legitimate company in a sea of competitors that are scams. With TAXI, you pay a yearly fee for access to opportunities that you very likely would not have access to anywhere else. Your music is then thoroughly screened when it is submitted – only the highest caliber material is passed along (‘forwarded’). The screeners, who are all industry professionals, then give you feedback on your track, something that is very useful if you have been rejected! TAXI never promises success. Even their ads emphasize that your music must be high-quality, and that you must be a serious musician in order for your money to be well-spent. They offer a money-back guarantee, too.”
Music creation has much become easier and far less expensive over the last two decades. The result is that more music is available, and more songwriters, artists, and composers are desperate to get their music heard by record labels, publishers, and Film and TV Music Supervisors. And where there are desperate musicians, there are companies that prey on them.
If you would like to learn more about TAXI members’ success stories, click here to read them. They are a testament that the world’s leading independent A&R company remains not only legitimate, but the only company mentioned in Zircon’s blog post. Could it be the only one of its kind? Maybe so!