PaRappa the Scammer

 Dred Foxx is a voice actor best known for performing the role of PaRappa the Rapper in the classic series of Sony games. It's my favorite game of all time, so when I heard he was on Facebook I dropped him a line and he added me to the Facebook PaRappa fan group. He seemed like a really cool guy, so when I thought about what I might want to do for my next animation project I figured it would be easy enough to ask him to do some PaRappa lines for a fan cartoon. I asked my friend Jacob if he thought it was a good idea and he agreed and sent him a message about it:

We didn't really want to pay $100, so we came up with $30 each and decided to see if that would be enough for the 7-8 lines we wanted him to do:

Apparently that would work but PayPal wasn't going to fly. This probably should have been the first clue that something was up but I thought nothing of it and tried out his alternate methods of payment. Moneygram didn't work so finally I tried Western Union and was able to send him the $60:

Dred says he'll have our lines done by the weekend and praises our honesty. Oh, the irony. A few days later Jake gets a message:

Evidently his management "found out" (aka he told them) and was now forcing him to charge the full $100. I was about to back out since I don't have that kind of scratch to be throwing around, but Jake was really set on seeing this happen so he put up the rest of the cash out of his own pocket. (I should clarify here, the money all originally came out of my bank account. Jake was going to pay me his half once the lines arrived.) Since I wasn't taking any big financial hit here I agreed to the deal. All the cash was sent by Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012. Dred promised us the lines by Friday and all was well!

Around this time Hurricane Sandy hit New York, so Dred understandably was not online for a while. However, he promised to get us the lines as soon as he could.

Er... that is, he apparently had the lines, but then... lost them. Not sure how that would have happened if he just sent them to us when he had them finished, but whatever.

Dred promises that he'll send back our "$$$" by the next week if he's still unable to record them. Sounds fair.

December 2nd I send him a message about how he can send the money… and he replies 17 days later claiming he can send it through PayPal. Wait... I thought his PayPal was "inactive for a minute"? Well, whatever. At least he plans on paying me ba-

...This clown owes us $100 and not only went out and bought an iPad, but is now asking for donations from members of the PaRappa fan group to replace it after he lost it at a Public Enemy concert? "Not taking advantage of his peeps" my ass! This isn't just PaRappa the Scammer anymore, this is full-on UmJammer Scammy!

I didn't feel like dealing with the situation over my winter break, so I stopped contacting him for a while. But on January 13th, he made like a genie and offered to grant us a wish!

As long as that wish isn't giving us our money back, apparently! I have no clue what he's talking about here. I already told him I wanted a refund, and he already said he'd send one. Why he's trying to weasel out of it now is beyond me, and I told him as much.

After a few months I get fed up with the excuses and send him a strongly worded message. It's really long and mostly consists of me summarizing the situation, but here's how it ends:

Yes, the old "my uncle is a lawyer" line. A bit weak, but I was just hoping to get some sort of reaction besides apathy from him. And I did...

He was going to send it this weekend? How convenient. And still the lies keep flowing, this man can't afford an iPad let alone a lawyer. However, he then backtracks a bit and appeals to sympathy by saying "things happen he has no control of". If that's the case then keep me updated instead of disappearing for weeks at a time!

I reply and he, unsurprisingly, doesn't respond. I've had it at this point. Jake then takes up the mantle of Chief Sucker and pesters Dred for our money over the summer, to no avail. Finally, he also decides to stop playing nice, and has me help him draft up something more intimidating. But Dred again puts on his tough guy face:

Aha, now the final score is revealed. "There is no agreement in writing" really just means "I don't have to pay you back because you never got me to sign anything, suckers!"

I send a few more requests for money that go ignored, and finally let Dred know that if he doesn't pay me back, I will write up an article about his thievery and lies... I think you know what comes next.

Wow! This guy seriously thinks his "fans" on Facebook are blind idiots who will follow him to the ends of the earth because he rapped about a dog taking a crap one time. (If you'll read part 2, you'll see that he is unfortunately correct.) And by the way, I would love to hear a song written about me, it might actually be worth the $100.

So there you have it folks. The long, sad story of John Simpson III, aka Dred Foxx. How does this tale end? Well, probably not with me getting my money back, but... I gotta believe!