Hey all, Scott from Joe's team here.

I specifically try to stay out of the forums to leave this space for the fans, but we here at JBHQ need your help.

The number of celebrity imposters on social media is at an all time high, and Joe is being hit especially hard. I kill about 20 fake Joe accounts a day, but they're getting worse and fans are being swindled out of tens of thousands of dollars by scammers.

I'm hoping that if anyone here is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc, and you see fake Joe accounts, you can help us by reporting the account as fake. The more people report the account, the quicker it gets removed. That's why Joe needs your help. A legion of fans all protecting other fans is the only way to stop this.

There are a few fans who have been really great about warning other fans in the comments of social media posts that the account is a scammer. I have been sending out gift cards, free JB tickets and more to those fans for helping. I hope to do the same for anyone here who can help out.

Let me know what you guys think and how we can work together to protect fans online.

Here's a page with more info you can share around: https://joeb.me/fakeJBscam

Thanks, really, from all of us at Joe Headquarters.

-Scott JBWM

Hey all, JBWM here down at JoeHQ.

Some of you might have noticed that we're very laissez faire about this forum, letting the fans do their own thing on here without management spoiling the fun. But we've received a few reports of bugs on the forum. We are going to try to do what we can to fix them, but like I said a few years back, this forum was built so long ago that there hasn't been an update or patch available in many, many years. We literally can't fix things when they break.

We wanted to upgrade the forums to something a bit more 2019 with new features and built on a more stable platform, but the overwhelming response we got from you all was "NO CHANGES" - so with that understood, we're very sorry if we can't fix certain bugs, but we do want to hear about them. Same goes from requested features.

We're also going to try to stay a bit more on top of Spam flags, so keep those coming when you see them as well.

With that said, what kind of bugs are we having right now? And would anyone be interested in us moving the forums to a new system that is more stable with better features, but might be at the risk of losing some old posts, or having some downtime or having to make new accounts? Just taking a poll.

Thanks,
JBWM and the J&R Team

It has come to J&R’s attention that a fan has been posing as a J&R employee. We take this VERY seriously and had our legal team look into it. Without much searching, it’s clear this person is Paul Boutchia.

Here is a screenshot of just some of the comments made on YouTube by the impersonating account: https://jbonamassa.com/temp/impersonation-p01.jpg
If you click on the username claiming to be “Joe B” and using the official J&R Adventures logo, it links to this YouTube account: https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulsZakk/
PaulsZakk. Just for further clarification, Paul Boutchia’s forum name was simply “Zakk”. That account has since been banned. If “PaulsZakk” isn’t enough of a hint, clicking on that users “VIDEOS” tab will show all videos liked by that imposter account. One of which is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78neaS5d3Yg “Warren Boutchia...”

The reason we’re going as far as posting this in the forum is because this kind of behavior is an attempt to undermine the credibility of Joe’s company, and we won’t allow that to happen. We, like Joe, love our fans and will work tirelessly to keep everyone entertained and safe. We have had issues with Paul many times in the past, but previously it only affected J&R. This is different. This is a fan attacking fans and we feel the Joe Bonamassa community needs to be aware of this.

Thanks,
Street Team Eric.
(The Real J&R Team)

Hey all, Joe's team here.

So we've spent years just letting the YouTube community do their thing, and continued with our "Let fans be fans" approach, but things are getting pretty out of hand at this point. Years ago, people would just post Joe videos to get his name out there, but YouTube is a VERY different place these days. Monetizing videos by allowing ads to be run means that anyone can (and do) just grab a Joe DVD, rip it to their computer, upload them to YouTube, turn on all ads and make money from pirating Joe's catalog. Same goes for ripping a CD, adding some pictures and making a slide-show fan music video. 

First these were flattering, but now it's just rampant copyright claims. We've posted Joe videos to Joe's official channel and had a random user from central Africa claim to be the "copyright owner" since they're already running the same video with their ads on it. We have to take a stand.

So, as of this moment, J&R will be copyright striking all videos that were ever released by J&R on a DVD/Bluray, as well as FULL SONGS released on an audio CD, edited or un-edited.

Video you filmed yourself with your own camera (from the audience) are still totally fine.

If you have uploaded these kinds of videos to your YouTube, or know a fan that did, please take them down immediately, or message the person who can. Taking them down now will stop the system from automatically striking your channel. YouTube does not make it easy to contact channel owners, so we're trying to warn everyone before their channel gets bad marks.

Thanks for understanding, and realize that we're putting 1000% more effort into Joe's channel these days and this means much more content, including exclusive never-before-seen stuff.

-JBWM

JBWM here to unfortunately tell you about yet another scam proliferating the net: The fake VIP ticket scam.
This is not just happening to Joe fans, it's happening to everyone from Madonna to U2.

Here's how it works. Someone on either Twitter or Facebook will contact you as either Joe or a member of his "team". What's particularly offensive is that they looked on the back of a CD and started using the name of Joe's actual manager, Roy.

They will offer you a "VIP Ticket ( Promotional ticket )" that supposedly is for front row tickets, a personal meeting with Joe and a dinner or something...  for the bargain price of $1500, which of course, can only be paid using a Money Transfer. FYI, if anyone on the internet asks you to pay using a money transfer, there's a 101% chance it's a scam, as those transfers, regardless of who you send it to, can be picked up anywhere in any country in the world using the transfer codes attached to them.

Here's an actual conversation from a scammer today:

Hello fan,  My name is Roy Weisman, i am Joe's Manager, he told me about your conversation... In order to purchase the VIP Ticket ( Promotional ticket ) we need your information as follows :-- Full Name, City, State, Zip code & Tel #. We require payment through MoneyGram transfer which can be done at any moneygram outlet or Walmart around you. Once you get to Walmart, request for a MoneyGram transfer form, fill in the information below ( Brandon Chase ) as the receiver of the money, fill in your information as the sender..Submit the form so they can process the instant money transfer. Brandon Chase is the sales Manager in charge of the Promo ticket, each ticket cost $1500 USD but Joe instructed me to get $1000 from you

Name : Brandon Chase
Address: 1220 Old Country Rd,
City : Westbury,
State : New York
Zip code : 11590
Country : USA

Once you are done with the instant money transfer, take a picture of the MoneyGram transfer receipt & email it to me so i can verify it and process your VIP ticket immediately.

Regards

The picture of the receipt is what they want. With that picture, they can claim the transfer anywhere (usually in central Africa).

Please spread the word. As with any scam, we're really sorry that we can't do anything more than we already do to stamp this out. We already kill a dozen fake accounts a day, but as long as people fall for it, they will NEVER stop.

Good luck, stay smart... and never pay for anything with a damn money transfer.

-JBWM

Unfortunately, due to a sinus infection, we have had to cancel the Peoria, IL show at the civic center. We apologize for any inconvenience this may create but not to worry, we have rescheduled to August 25th! Below is the official statement:

"Due to a severe sinus infection, the Joe Bonamassa concert originally scheduled at the Peoria Civic Center theater for Monday, March 6th, 2017 has been rescheduled for Friday, August 25th, 2017. Tickets for the March 6th show will be valid for the rescheduled date. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing everyone in August!

Any questions can be directed to customerservice@peoriaciviccenter.com or the Toyota Box Office at the Peoria Civic Center at 1-309-673-8900"

Hey all, JBWM here.

Yesterday (Oct. 04, 2016) we had some forum outages. After a bunch of deep digging into the problem we found that the server this forum lives on is constantly updated and patched, but the code for the forum is version 1.1 from 2011. It's designed to work with technologies that are long since antiquated. This means we're being forced to upgrade to version 5.5. We're taking all steps to properly backup things so we don't lose any posts, but it might blink on and off again during this process.

We would be doing this server update today, but our offices are located in South Florida and if you hadn't been following it, we've got ourselves a hurricane. This office is in the evac zone so we're battening down the hatches as we speak. If there are problems with the forums in the next few days, we apologize, but not much can be done right now. We'll do the update early next week.

Thanks for understanding and most importantly your patience.

-Scott
JBWM

Hey all, Scott (JBWM) here!

After a long time of development, we’ve finally updated http://www.JBonamassa.com
I was hoping that Joe’s biggest fans could help us improve it even further.
I’m welcoming your thoughts, ideas and help, so post them here.
There’s some great new features on the site, here’s a few:

  • Automatic Ticket Links

• This is one of the most fan-forward things we’ve done. All websites can see your IP address, and from that know your location. We’re using it to see if you’re in a place where Joe is playing and popping up a link to get tickets automatically.
o We’ve seen, unsurprisingly so, from analytics that the vast majority of people that go to JBonamassa.com immediately click on the tour page and look for tickets, so we made the process much simpler.

  • Media Section

• There’s a discography page where you can choose any album and listen to samples of every single song. The only ones we’re missing are the releases on the “Projects” page, with BCC, Heart & RCFP… but we might put samples there too.
• There’s a VIDEOS page where you can see not only Joe’s top videos from YouTube, but you can filter by BonaJamTracks and watch every video guitar lesson right from that page. We’re still working on getting the download links in there wink

  • Joe’s Guitars

• In the ABOUT section, there’s a link to see all of Joe’s favorite guitars and gear from his personal collection “The Bona-seum” – he’s going to send us updates as he gets them so we can keep a running list of his favorites there for everyone to read about.

  • Fans Section

• There’s a page where you can upload your proudest Joe fan pictures and after approval, they’ll appear on the site. I’ve already seeded it with a bunch of pictures you guys sent in to BonamassaPictures@Gmail.com
• The official Bonamassa Blog is integrated right into the site. There’s some awesome reads on there all written by Brian R, who reads all day about music history and writes all night about great music and Joe.

  • Contact Joe

• We’ve simplified the way to contact us, and Joe, with the new form. Anything you want answered, put it there and we’ll get back to you quickly.

Check out the new site and tell us any bugs, thoughts, missing links, sections that were on the old site you don’t see on the new site… anything! And as always, thanks for being fans!
-Scott

As the person responsible for Joe Bonamassa's official Facebook Page, I'm saddened and angered to have to make this post, but this is a serious problem that needs to be officially addressed.

If anyone claiming to be Joe Bonamassa has contacted you, or someone you know via Facebook or other social media, they are not Joe Bonamassa.

Here's how the scam works:

  • Someone will contact you on Facebook (especially if you are female) typically using Facebook Messenger.

  • They will take their time building your confidence, thanking you for being a fan, etc.

  • They will ask you for your cellphone number, give you theirs (trust us, they're untraceable).

  • Eventually they will tell you they need money, or assistance (which always eventually becomes money).

This scam has been around as long as social media has been around. Almost every (usually male) celebrity has to deal with this, from Sports Heroes to TV & Film stars, and definitely musicians.

Here's a news report about Scammers pretending to be Kid Rock:
http://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/ … h-facebook

We work closely with Facebook corporate to kill these profiles, but they create them as quickly as we can delete them and will not stop any time soon.

They're easy to spot, if you search Facebook for "Joe Bonamassa", go to the People tab, you will likely see some profiles where they stole Joe's pictures in an attempt to duplicate his profile. The profile is never more than a week old (we do weekly sweeps of these profiles) and typically have only a few (again, usually female) friends.

Notify us if this has happened to you or someone you know, tell your friends and fellow fans, and thanks for helping in any way you can. You can email me directly, it's my first name at JR-Adventures.com
(Never type your email out in a forum, bots could snag it!)

Here's the official page we created to inform Facebook fans they've been the target of a common scam:
http://content.jbonamassa.com/Facebook-Scams.html

Scott Macaluso, JBWM

Hello England Friends! Due to the risk of bad weather for Joe's Houghton Tower show, we have had to move the venue indoors. Below is the official announcement and venue information:


Due to torrential rain this week, it has been decided that Joe’s concert at Hoghton Tower this Saturday will be moved indoors to Preston Guild Hall. The venue will be a mixture of standing and unreserved seating and provides the best opportunity for Joe’s fans not to miss his planned visit to Preston.

Preston Guild Hall
Lancaster Rd, Preston PR1 1HT
01772 804440
www.prestonguildhall.com

Doors will open at 6pm.
Joanne Shaw Taylor 6:45 pm
Joe Bonamassa 8:00 pm

For more information visit www.symphonyatthetower.co.uk

Hey all, JBWM here.

By the by, JBWM or Joe Bonamassa's Web Master is a title I inherited when I started here about 4 years ago. My name is Scott and I'm Joe's Digital Marketing Director. That's a fancy way of saying that I handle his Social stuff and any ads that end up on a screen, including JBonamassa.com ..speaking of which, we're finally doing some major changes to. James Ross Advertising is a design firm we're good buddies with that's helping us modernize our sites. We know the forum is hallowed ground, and don't want to make many changes over here, but we intend to give it the same love our new site is getting. I just made them an admin yesterday to make sure that they check how "responsive" the forums are, which is a fancy way of ensuring it will work well now and in the future for modern phones, tablets, wrist communicator devices, digital eye-implants, neuro-telepathy, and any other technologies known or unknown.

With that said, JamesRossAdvertising is cool. Chances are you'll never see a post from them. They just wanted to look under the hood.

Thanks, and Rock On,
-Scott (JBWM)

Jane H. wrote:
adenderulo wrote:

Thanks for post. Ripoffs are schemes in order to con you from your money. They may arrive by publish, phone call, text,  email, or a scammer might even turn up in your doorstep.

i just saw this older post. the irony of it being left right before JBWM's post is almost killing me.....if they delete it i'll remove this quote of it

anyway I wanted to let other users to know that the new mod added is legit even though his user name looks exactly like spam
I've sent comments to the office about reported spam not being deleted right off so hopefully they are getting notification of when we report a thread or looking into it. even with a bot preventer type thing i guess it doesn't prevent non-bot produced spam. they have literally taunted us here before letting us know they are not all bots, or whatever the proper terminology is. i am sure the bot preventer thing helps with the massive spam loads left all over at once though. the system we have with the post reporting and a short reply post helps prevent excessive reporting so until otherwise instructed by those officially designated i guess that is still the best protocol, well along with directly emailing Eric as he noted above if it persists.
welcome jamesrossadvertising...........

Hello and a good Monday to you all!! Hopefully you have all enjoyed a nice restful weekend and had a great Superbowl Sunday!! I have come to you with codes, those magical pre-sale numbers for tomorrow's 3 Kings announcement. See below for your code:

8/7 Camden, NJ Susquehanna Bank Center JB07CAM

8/8 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts HOL08JB

8/10 Saratoga, NY Saratoga Performing Arts 10JBSAR

8/11 Newport, RI Newport Yachting Center JB11NEW

8/12 Bangor, ME Darling's Waterfront 12JBBAN

8/14 Cuyahoga Falls, OH Blossom Music CUY14JB

8/15 Dayton, OH Fraze Pavilion JB15DAY

8/17 Morrison, CO Red Rocks 17MORJB

8/20 West Valley City, UT USANA Amphitheater SLC20JB

8/22 Mountainview, CA Shoreline Amphitheater JB22MOU

8/24 Paso Robles, CA Vina Robles Amphitheater 24PASJB

8/25 Santa Barbara, CA Santa Barbara Bowl STB25JB

8/26 San Diego, CA Humphrey's by the Bay JB1SD26

8/28 San Diego, CA Humphrey's by the Bay JB2SD28

8/29 Los Angeles, CA Greek Theatre 29LOSJB

Remember to copy and paste or enter the codes exactly as they are typed here when booking your tickets to ensure that you get access.

Thanks,

Street Team Eric

That guitar is a historic makeover JB 335 done in red. It developed a few odd lacquer checks on the ride to Reno so I took advantage of a below zero day and a dressing room heater to even out the job nature had already started. 

Joe B