Tinderbox Music Shady, possibly a scam, avoid Minneapolis Minnesota

My experience with Tinderbox music is very similar to the other report posted on Ripoff Report on 4/16/13.

Before going through with a radio campaign with Tinderbox, I was advised by someone not to do it and that Tinderbox is a scam. I can't say definitively that it is a scam but it wasn't a great experience and at the time I could not find any reviews of their work. I even requested information from the BBB, but there was none.

Prior to and during the radio campaign, Jon Delange would send me emails of praise about Tinderbox from other customers. They appear to be either made up or were written at the request of Tinderbox. I'm including an example of the dubious emails at the bottom. What I find funny is that the author summarizes the chain of events; Tinderbox would be in the position of informing the customer what is happening with their record/tracks.

The radio campaign seemed to go OK, and they informed us that we reached 99 on the CMJ charts. I had no way to verify this because you need to subscribe to get more than just the top 20 from CMJ's website.

Jon Delange led us to believe that there are no upfront fees for TV licensing. This is not really true. What he deliberately didn't clarify is that there are no fees for TV licensing at the time of doing the radio campaign. (They don't allow you to do TV licensing without the radio campaign.) Once the radio portion is done, then you absolutley do have to pay upfront fees, something like $120 for each placement attempt. Each fee is relatively small, but Mr. Delange basically said he wouldn't do it unless we attempted 12 or more placements. So we would have indeed had to pay anywhere from $1400-2000 UP FRONT.

During the TV licensing discussion I had with Delange, he was angry that I asked him difficult questions such as what percentage of musicians he works with make their money back. He was very reluctant to tell me and seemed to get angrier the more I probed. He also acted as if he was doing me a favor even though I had paid over $2000 for Tinderbox's services.

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Hey Jon & Tinderbox Staff, 

I just want to send a quick email expressing how thoroughly impressed I am with your work and services. I have been doing this long enough to have developed a bit of skepticism about industry services, often finding prolific promises upfront and very little follow through on the back end. My experience with Tinderbox has been the opposite. Not only did you deliver on exactly what you promised, but the results you produced far exceeded what I expected! Your work in both radio and licensing has been phenomenal! In a previous radio campaign, the company struggled to make it through the 6 weeks I was promised. With you, I am in my 11th week of CMJ radio and the record is still receiving heavy attention, charting at new stations, even charting at #1 at a station 7 weeks in! The record charted #1 at 2 stations the first week out and was the highest charting self-released record at it's peak! And as fantastic as radio has been, licensing was truly the centerpiece. The exposure to so many music directors with such prestige is invaluable to my future. I never imagined getting a license with a select station like Showtime, an expansive network like Discovery, or a buzz-franchise like Keeping Up With The Kardashians + spin-offs! And that is just a small sampling of the licenses you produced! Not only did you produce high numbers, but they are all of high quality. It is incredibly exciting to get such positive results, especially as an independent artist who has gotten used to only moderate payoff for my hard work. I feel spoiled by the experience and completely thrilled to finally receive the respect for my music I have long desired! 

You all are the best and I will be back for future releases!

Thanks,

Dan