Metal promotions company Pure Deathcore has gone dark after its owner is accused of defrauding customers.
For several years Mississippi outfit Pure Deathcore has offered their promotional services to the metal world. Essentially, a band pays Pure Deathcore $50-$200 for a sponsorship, which seemingly includes a post on its official Facebook page (with its 65,000) followers, in addition to perhaps a YouTube upload (the Pure Deathcore channel has 31,000 subscribers). Beyond that, it's not clear exactly what a "lifetime sponsorship" entails.
Since its inception, seemingly hundreds of bands have paid Pure Deathcore for their services. For the moment, however, the operation has ceased functioning as owner and founder Troy Greene deals with ongoing accusations of fraud.
On Tuesday, one of our readers alerted us that Greene was under fire for "scamming," and allegedly using the funds to support a drug addiction of some sort. Fast forward a few days and allegations of fraud have begun to go public, including this comment from Andrew Patterson, reportedly a former Pure Deathcore admin:
"In a band? Don't get 'sponsored' by Pure Deathcore. That is, unless you don't ever want to see your money and want to endorse a heroin habit."
The comments to Patterson's post comprise a veritable catalog of complaints against Greene and Pure Deathcore, with some alleging they paid $200 to Greene and received very little in return. Additionally, many claim that Greene subsequently contacted them in the hopes of obtaining more money.
Last night, one Harrison Burkardt, a member of Arizona deathcore band Decayer, offered up this warning to his peers:
"If you are in a band, never go through Pure Deathcore for anything! Troy Greene is a POS scam artist. After begging my band to pay for a sponsorship, which he eventually dropped his $200 price down to $20. He later stole $140 my band Decayer paid him to boost a post. I've gone back and forth with him for weeks on getting the money back, he's used every excuse imaginable to not return the money, or hasn't responded. I'm posting this so other bands are aware and no one else gets taken advantage of by a scam artist."
Once again, the comments find a large handful of artists coming out of the woodwork to relay similar stories regarding Pure Deathcore and Greene.
Finally, at some point during the past day (just hours after posting about Texan band Reign), the operation's official Facebook went offline.
Regardless of what transpires, please do your homework before you pay anyone a dime for promotion.