musicians beware: scammers are targeting artists and fans in 2026

By  Jess Santacroce
Music Writer, Phoenix Radio

Scams may be older than the computer itself, but the same old scams always seem to be able to grow and change with the times. In 2026, three scams have been found to be especially active, and scammers are increasingly targeting those in the music business and their fans and supporters.

Extortion scams

The latest version of the extortion scam begins with the scammer hacking into the musician’s computer and/or their online accounts. The scammer then lets the musician know they did it, and demands money. If the victim ignores the threat or challenges the scammer and refuses to pay, the hacker/scammer claims to have their unreleased music or lyrics and threatens to destroy it or release and copyright it under their own name, if the musician does not hand over the requested cash. Musicians may also be told the scammer has their financial information, medical records, or other private materials that would cause serious problems for the musician’s career and personal life if they were used by someone else or released publicly.

Should you receive an email, text message, or social media message from someone claiming to have your unreleased music or any other information you have not chosen to share with the public and demanding money, stay calm. The scammer is counting on you panicking and sending them the money without thinking. Instead, reach out to the site that hosts the communication and report the incident. Then, act as fast as you can to secure any online space the scammer has threatened. Contact your bank if they told you they have your banking passwords, move your unreleased music onto a portable drive, etc.

No matter how tempting, never confront, challenge, or mock the scammer. Any further communication with them only opens up opportunities for them to install malware on your computer and do further damage.

Career advancement and other business opportunity scams

People pretending to be agents, publishers, recording studio owners, music company executives, promoters, and hosts of music festivals in order to take advantage of independent musicians and other artists have always been around. Their “job” has just gotten a lot easier with the internet, and has grown especially easy with the use of AI.

When the internet first came into everyday use, it was easy to tell the difference between the professional website of a music producer or literary agent and the personal page of a random person. Professional pages were much simpler, but very similar in appearance to the websites you visit today. Personal pages were typically hosted by a site called “geocities.” The name “geocities” could not be removed from the URL for a fee, and the available materials produced fun but clearly amateurish sites, with cartoonish graphics and fonts. Over the past few years, hosting sites have evolved to allow anyone to create a professional looking page about anything, including their nonexistent career as a top music promoter or manager.

In 2026, AI makes faking qualifications even easier. Before AI, a budding scammer would have at least needed to do enough research into the profession he or she was faking to write...or steal...some convincing copy. Today’s career and business scammer only needs to prompt a bot to generate the material for them in seconds. Then all they have to do is reach out to the musician they’re targeting via text, email, or social media, and direct the person back to their “professional” page.

Research is your best defense against this type of scam. Check and verify everything on the person’s page before agreeing to speak to them further. If everything checks out, meet with them in person, in a public place, and refuse to attend the first meeting alone. No matter how big and tough you may be, how many years you’ve been a professional musician, or how street smart you may be, always take someone you already know and trust along with you.

Celebrity impersonation romance scams

Fans seem to be the primary target of this type of scam, and musicians are often huge fans of other well-known musicians. The scam begins when the target happens upon a social media page or group devoted to the fellow musician they admire. Things go well at first. You meet other admirers of the artist or group, and begin discussing their music, perhaps swapping tips on covering their songs with other musicians who also look up to them.

Suddenly, you receive a message from the subject of the page themselves. Honored to be greeted by someone you admire, you of course engage in conversation with them. The conversation begins to take an odd turn. The person you look up to professionally is claiming to be interested in you romantically. This is the point where it would stop for most people. Even if you’re single, the musician you look up to professionally is also your celebrity crush, and that person is also single, you know that the odds of the famous person logging into a fan site are almost zero, and the odds that your message or comment would be the one that the algorithm brought across their screen at the exact right time for them to see it are even smaller. Celebrities simply aren’t on fan pages and groups flirting with people. The potential risk to their career and personal life should they trust the wrong person is too great. And even if your celebrity crush did take that risk, the odds that your comment or message would be the one their eye would land on in the sea of communications they would get are slim to none. 

Unfortunately, the scammers are ready for this scenario. While it is primarily a romance scam, with the scammer hoping to snare gullible fans with crushes on the celebrity, they have no problem pivoting to a business scam, claiming to offer business advice, grants, or investment opportunities if they think that might work to get you to hand over your money. But just as they are not online flirting with fans, celebrities are not online offering up platonic personal information about their investments or business dealings either. There is just too great a risk that someone might sell the chat logs or message history to a gossip site or channel. And even if your favorite celebrity did take that risk, the odds that they’d see you in the middle of all the comments and messages they’d receive are astronomically low.

Delete and block anyone who approaches you online claiming to be a celebrity.

The scams may be tired but the scammers are not. They’re hard at work revising and reworking their scams just a little each year, doing all they can to get money without putting in any honest effort or using any admirable skills to earn it.