A rapper is suing me for exposing his scam

right now a rapper is threatening to sue me for exposing his scams so let me explain this past week I released a video where I was discussing the rapper phora and how I believe he scammed his fans I first covered a Kickstarter he made where he raised sixty five thousand dollars to create his own record label and fund his career as an independent artist he made a very emotional documentary to announce the kickstarter which I joked about as it seemed like a way to guilt-trip his fans one of the main selling points for the kickstarter is that fans would receive perks depending on how much they pledged like merchandise Early Access to his album and things along those lines I then went through all the comments on the kickstarter where tons of people said they never got the rewards for donating on top of that I mentioned how he signed to Warner Bros records less than two years after creating the kickstarter to make his own label I said in my opinion that it seems very scammy however the main focus was his clothing brand Yours Truly clothing I essentially went over negative reviews across various review websites spanning all the way back to 2018 with tons of people saying they never got their items the items took too long to ship or that they did get the products but they were poor quality that was just the bulk of the section just me covering hundreds of reviews with similar stories I then added up a ton of the reviews and the kickstarter and estimated that at least 71 543 dollars were taken from fans I actually rounded down for the sake of the title I then pointed out that the Better Business Bureau is even investigating this business because of all the complaints and just to be doubly sure that scamming was taking place I reached out to a bunch of the people that left negative reviews and I had tons of people tell me in direct messages that they ordered from the website and never received anything the story was actually brought to me by someone who had been scammed then at the end of the video I just critiqued and joked about Forest comments on the situation with no actual accusations being made and I would also like to point out how in the beginning of the video I said everything's alleged however I didn't just make up facts I was basically just compiling a bunch of people's reviews and experiences with this brand into one video the intention was just to bring awareness to a sketchy brand it wasn't to cancel anyone it wasn't to slander anyone or anything along those lines I even said that the majority of customers probably did get their orders but when hundreds of people are having issues the brand needs to take some sort of accountability I recommend watching the full video after this one just to get a better idea of the situation but now I'm going to move on to the aftermath of the video shortly after posting the video a bunch of people commented about their negative experiences with yours truly clothing or phora himself I also got a handful of DMS from people who had similar experiences however my favorite comment was from phora who attempted to respond by saying a lot of holes in your story bro but I will say I have made my fair share of business mistakes I take the blame and still have some cleaning up to do when it comes to the clothing brand but that's what happens when you get into business with shitty people and you're the face you have to eat the punches everything will come to light in the end but the truth is scamming is illegal and an actual crime if I was truly scamming people I would be in prison like real prison everyone who has tried to get merch or clothing or whatever it is has an easy way to get all of their money back it's called a chargeback call your bank say you didn't get the services you were supposed to get automatic refund that goes with any customer buying from a business hopefully this helps someone on another note yeah a lot of making up to do but I've gotten with a brand new team of people who are on top of it and ready to help me Elevate things and take it to the next level no arrests no lawsuits just unfortunate business mistakes with some shitty business partners hope this clears things up and I'll be back at everything in less than two months great video editing and storyline just wish there were more actual facts or something that made the scammer title make a little more sense I considered responding to this but some viewers actually beat me to the punch ratioing him in the process saying call your bank and do a chargeback that's really your response and as far as I'm aware based on the research I've done that seems kind of illegal according to the Federal Trade commission's mail order rule internet businesses selling goods are required to ship the good within the time stated on their website or if no time is stated within 30 days and I can't see if any times were stated on the clothing Brand's website as it is currently down the mail order rule also says if after taking the customer's order you learn that you cannot ship within the time stated or within 30 days you must seek the customer's consent to the delayed shipping if you cannot obtain the customer's consent to the delay you must without being asked promptly refund all the money the customer paid you for the unshipped merchandise and if you've seen the video or understand my summary that wasn't the case so I'm not making any claims here but technically that sounds illegal now I mentioned in the video I wouldn't have minded talking to him or hearing what he has to say and I even dm'd him but he instead ignored that and responded with our company won't issue refunds but you can do a chargeback he also never pointed out the holes in my story or anything like that but since that was his response I left it at that however the other night I was at the gym getting big when I got an email from a guy named Selman Selman at first I thought it was a prank but it turns out it's some guy in the music industry who most likely works with phora the email reads Mr ball this is a formal request for a cecent assist to your recent video upload this rapper scammed his fans for 71 543 posted on 326.23 please see the attached formal letter and issue a takedown immediately my client is reserving the right to take legal action for failure of cooperation attached was a document that said I make false claims of scamming behavior that could result in irreversible damages to the intellectual prop properties and Brands owned by fora LLC and they went on to demand that I take the video down or else they'll pursue legal action I have since learned that this is called a slap suit which is a strategic lawsuit against public participation which is basically an intimidation tactic to keep people from speaking up and I'll admit I was pretty intimidated because I don't want to be sued but I also didn't want to take the video down so I responded what claims are false Mr Selman responded under the state of California a cease and desist can be sent on the ground of slander and libel that are detrimental to intellectual property name and lightness and more furthermore your use of the name and lightness Sephora a trademarked asset of fora LLC is also in breach of the law of California I am sure your video is monetized therefore profiting illegally from the name and likeness of my client again failure to immediately take down the video will result in legal action I was fairly confused that he said for his name was trademarked because I just thought that was weird and I couldn't say it in a YouTube video so I said I can't use his name that doesn't sound right anyways I said everything in the video was alleged never claimed it as fact Selman Salman responded again no you cannot use a registered trademark without permission that is why it's trademarked he had a little bit of attitude in this statement Knowing damn well that I was just surprised for a trademarked his name anyways he continued also your title States this rapper scammed his fans for 71 543 that is a statement made by you and does not read as an allegation you are in breach of multiple laws here defamation of character illegal use of intellectual property profiting from name and likeness and more failure to take down the video by 11 59 PM EST will result in us taking legal action for the damages incurred so he just suddenly added a time that I had to take the video down by which seemed to me as a way of putting pressure on me and made me feel like his claims were a lot less legitimate at this point I was pretty pissed that they were trying to intimidate me over a video that was essentially just a compilation of negative reviews with a few jokes and opinions here and there so I responded with a little bit of SASS and said alright so title change is what you're looking for no problem but if I can't say his name shouldn't you be issuing a cecent assist to each fan posting videos with his name other than that I see nothing illegal with the video especially since like I said everything is alleged and what damages have been incurred the business is shut down as of now anyways is it not also for IC or cc'd I am more than willing to talk about the situation in a video and have it be explained I don't have it out for you or anything but multiple people came to me saying they never received anything so I covered it legal action over a silly YouTube video isn't a good look so at the time I was fine talking to him and like I said I had no personal grudges against him but now I do he was playing nice in my comments and then tries intimidation tactics in my emails he even complimented me in the comment trying to look like some sort of nice guy all of this could have been avoided if he just took me up on my offer and talked to me about the situation because plenty of people beforehand already thought he was a scammer but since he was deleting all the comments in his comment section and turned off his Instagram and did all these things to hide it there was no one place to look for all this information so I put it online if I did make a mistake which I don't think I did I would have immediately taken the video down and apologized again at the end of the day I was just covering a story instead he decided to try to intimidate me with a lawsuit which like I said is not a good look I'm not sure whether or not they'll actually go through with the lawsuit but one reason I doubt they will sue me is because his Shady business would be put under a microscope which is also why I think instead of addressing any false claims I made in the email they instead used other arguments as to why they consume me I've yet to see a false claim specified but I genuinely do believe that what he did constitutes as some sort of scamming or fraudulent activity and for further clarification you can watch the full video that I recently posted I'll leave the link in the description below anyways this is the situation right now I'll keep you guys posted on Twitter with anything that happens next because of this there is a little delay on my next video but don't worry we will shortly be returning to our regularly scheduled programming anyways thank you guys for watching this has been Mr ball and I'll see you guys next time

Channel: mattyballz

Views: 224,809

Keywords: this rapper scammed his fans for $71, 543, how this rapper scammed his fans, phora, yours truly, phora rapper, phoraone, phora music, phora songs, kickstarter, yours truly clothing, yours truly scam, yours truly clothing scam, yours truly records, yours truly record label, scam, scammer, hip hops biggest scammer, carter jamison, ally lotti, A rapper is suing me for exposing his scam

Id: xU71VzW7_w0

Length: 8min 47sec (527 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023