# Is this a youtube scam or possible scamola
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 8, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856 "2009-11-08T23:50:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/1 "2009-11-08T23:50:47Z")
Received to my youtube inbox;
"I have a question for you – could we PAY YOU to use our music on your vids with audioswap?
I can pay you $100 (one hundred US dollars) if you would agree to use youtube’s AUDIOSWAP feature to feature our music on your video."
It said below that;
“NOTE – I’m well experienced with making payments, so depending on where you are located, I’d suggest we complete the transaction by paypal (usually easiest), or if that is impossible, we could do it by: Bank Transfer, Western Union, Check, Moneygram, [Xoom.com](http://Xoom.com) – or probably there are more options we could explore.”
😕
Their flashy looking homepage on youtube is [here](http://www.youtube.com/user/trackonerecordings).
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/2 "2009-11-09T00:51:56Z")
Are they talking about one specific video? What sort of traffic (how many views per week, say) does the video get?
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### Author:  [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/3 "2009-11-09T22:28:02Z")
> [@Pushkin](#):
>
> …$100 (one hundred US dollars) …
The only time I see an amount spelled out like that is on checks and scams. This isn’t a check.
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/4 "2009-11-10T04:13:18Z")
Is is a scam? _shrug_ dunno.
Could it be a scam? It’s the internet, so… yeah. 🙂
Their (non Youtube) homepage is [Track One Recordings](http://trackonerecordings.com/) it appears… and they seem to be in the business of selling music, and using Youtube videos as a marketing strategy.
I guess the concept is that people watch popular vids, hear their euro music being used as a backing track and go off and buy an album. An interesting idea; they get market exposure and the video owner makes some money (the suspicious part) and gets “cool” and legal music to back their video with.
So, as \*\*Mangetout \*\*asked, if you have some highly popular videos it could be kosher… maybe…
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2009, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/5 "2009-11-10T06:10:54Z")
If someone Western Unions you money, it can’t be a scam for you. You can only Western Union money _to_ scammers, not _from_ them. So go ahead, take their money. And then scam them!
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### Author:  [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2009, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/6 "2009-11-10T07:12:39Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> If someone Western Unions you money, it can’t be a scam for you. You can only Western Union money _to_ scammers, not _from_ them. So go ahead, take their money. And then scam them!
Yeah thats what they want him to think, til he ends up using some shady unknown escrow service instead, with a 25$ (twenty-five US Dollar) release fee, which, not to worry, he’ll just include that 25$ on top of the $100 that’s waiting for you in there
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### Author:  [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/7 "2009-11-10T13:37:11Z")
My gut instinct is that this is a phishing expedition. They’ll ask you for contact information, then make up some excuse as to why the transfer didn’t work, and then ask for something like your bank routing number and/or account number, or SS#, or credit card, or PayPal account and password.
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### Author:  [@PostalBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PostalBlues)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-youtube-scam-or-possible-scamola/516856/8 "2009-11-12T04:15:19Z")
FYI: Track One paid me $75 by PayPal to change my audio on my one video,Turns out they seem legit and are sort of “investing”.YouTube pays them royalties per view and they are making this pitch to videos that are ranked high or have a lot of links- so they will/may eventually make money if the videos remain popular.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0109liIZGQ)
I had a Nintendo sound track before,because this reminded me of Mario Sunshine FLUDD,I audio swapped to their track and I did get $75.