PaRappa the Scammer IV: Chapters of the Chosen

Well, it's been quite some time since I posted an update, hasn't it... the reason being Dred Foxx blocked me from seeing anything he posts. It's come to digging through what scraps I get from folks willing to screencap his BS for me. I feel like the family dog at the dinner table!

In any case, let's start back in early March (around the 11th IIRC) where Dred posted this:

 

Rather than actually address and resolve the situation, Dred chooses to hide from it by making a new group. He also vows to take to Youtube with his side of the story (which he still hasn't done) and also hit up "his man Treezy" with a juicy helping of TRUTH (he hasn't done that either). Also, he has again revised his fan count from 500 million to a mere 500+ thousand. Or maybe he actually means 500 + 1000. That'd be a much more likely number, at least.

The same chuckleheads who defended him before are back to kiss more ass, of course. What is it about Dred Foxx that causes some people to collectively lose IQ points?

You may recall that Dred threatened a lawsuit shortly after this, but he ended up dropping the idea a day or two later after Jacob started getting worried and asked him to not do it. (I don't have a screencap of this ATM, but if I find one I'll add it.) It's a shame, I really would have loved to watch Dred admit that he never had a case and was dropping all farcical charges.

March 25th:

  

"This misunderstanding is done"? It's done when you pay us, not when you decide you're tired of the negative posts! And since all these internet comments he's forced to read are draining his focus, he has to head to Florida to clear his hea- wait, what? WHAT? You can't cough up a measly $100 but have enough dough to fly across the country?

April 12th:

"The legend" has been off the grid feeding his family, apparently.  I think "avoiding Cameron and Jacob" is probably a more accurate statement, but whatever. I'm honestly surprised that he's still getting negative comments at this point, I didn't think people would keep it going for so long.

Oh, and don't forget kids - Life is such, don't waste it on Cow Pucks!

And finally, here's the last update I've got for you, on April 22nd. We get to enjoy another classic Dred Foxx rant. He has now lost his grip on reality and is convinced that the people requesting that he stop being a scam artist and just return our money are DEVILS and that his situation is comparable to assorted celebrities that haven't ripped college students off.

(By the way, this isn't the first time Dred has made a poor choice regarding which celebrities to compare himself to.

Our friend Curier on NeoGAF said it best... "...Did he just compare himself to a puppeteer that allegedly touched kids?")

Dred's adoring fans agree with his assessment of the situation (one even manages to "cleverly" slip in a request to be a moderator on the fan group!) Finally, he leaves us with these immortal words:

"Negative comments post them to you loved ones"

Wow, only a true visionary of our time could have written such a profound statement! Can we get a source on tha- oh, Dred Foxx wrote it.

Now, as you may already know, this blog has gotten quite a few hits. According to the statistics, it's already reached over 70,000 pageviews! And as such, at least a few of those people felt strongly enough about the situation to provide their own take on it:

What Dred Foxx is up to these days. - Yesujira reveals Dred's secret life!

You Gotta Believe (Me)! - An Interview with Dred Foxx - TheSpoiler has a chat with our Foxxy friend.

Oh Dred. - LookAtMeGo got the flow, comin at ya live, brings the place alive every single day he jives!

But none brought the heat more than RyanBankz, who dropped an epic two-part rap saga that not even PaRappa himself could hope to match.

PETA (Dead Foxx)

Speed Dial (PETA 2)

There were also numerous text raps and a few hilarious pictures being posted in the NeoGAF thread. It'd take ages to hunt them all down, but feel free to dig around if you want. Thanks to everyone who made something, they provided a lot of laughs throughout this whole thing. And thanks to all of you for reading this blog! I don't know if we'll ever get our money back, but hopefully this will make others think twice before doing business with Dred Foxx again. (And remember Dred, if you just pay us back like you should have done ages ago? My offer still stands - this whole blog disappears!)

PaRappa the Scammer Part III: Pink Jacket

Sigh. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

So the other day, Dred responded to this whole thing on Facebook. (He blocked me shortly after this blog started getting some attention, so I've been relying on others to get screencaps for me.)

 

Apparently he's going on Youtube to record a response. I don't know what response he could possibly give considering this blog provides concrete evidence that he scammed me but whatever. Fast forward to today!

Who has time for Youtube when there's LAWSUITS TO FILE!? That's right, apparently I'm getting sued to the tune of $5000!

Now, there are a lot of things I could say about this, but I'll only say a few. And Dred, this is directly to you, so read closely.

• You are supposedly suing me for defamation of character, slander, and harassment. Now, I'm no legal expert, but let's take a look at the definition of those claims, taken from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com:

Defamation
Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person's reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.

Nothing we've said about you is false. We have evidence that there was communication between us in which you promised to deliver lines, we paid in advance, and you never followed through with said lines or a refund. You have no leg to stand on.

Slander
Oral defamation, in which someone tells one or more persons an untruth about another which untruth will harm the reputation of the person defamed. Slander is a civil wrong (tort) and can be the basis for a lawsuit. Damages (payoff for worth) for slander may be limited to actual (special) damages unless there is malicious intent, since such damages are usually difficult to specify and harder to prove. Some statements such as an untrue accusation of having committed a crime, having a loathsome disease, or being unable to perform one's occupation are treated as slander per se since the harm and malice are obvious, and therefore usually result in general and even punitive damage recovery by the person harmed. Words spoken over the air on television or radio are treated as libel (written defamation) and not slander on the theory that broadcasting reaches a large audience as much if not more than printed publications. (See: defamation, fair comment)

Again, nothing we've written is false. If you have some top-secret documents that reveal otherwise, I'd love to see them. Also, I hope you didn't delete all the posts on the fan page where you started essentially cyberbullying us in hopes of making it look like I fabricated them, because multiple other people who were there can easily verify that you posted them.

Harassment
The act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone to quit a job or grant sexual favors, apply illegal pressure to collect a bill, or merely gain sadistic pleasure from making someone fearful or anxious. Such activities may be the basis for a lawsuit if due to discrimination based on race or sex, a violation on the statutory limitations on collection agencies, involve revenge by an ex-spouse, or be shown to be a form of blackmail ("I'll stop bothering you, if you'll go to bed with me"). The victim may file a petition for a "stay away" (restraining) order, intended to prevent contact by the offensive party. A systematic pattern of harassment by an employee against another worker may subject the employer to a lawsuit for failure to protect the worker.

The only part that could vaguely apply here is "applying illegal pressure to collect a bill",  and even then it doesn't work. We've never made an illegal threat or applied illegal pressure toward you, and last I checked, repeatedly asking someone to give you a refund after they have not delivered the promised product is not harassment.

So basically, none of your arguments would hold up even slightly in court, and you are only further hurting your reputation by pretending they would. Furthermore:

• You have no legal team. If you did, they would have laughed you out of the room the moment they asked for your evidence of any slander, defamation, or harassment.

• Jacob and I would still be splitting any money you actually refund us (which, by the way, we're still waiting on), so even if you give him $60 he's still giving me some of it. Trying to be petty in hopes of hurting me will only hurt him, sorry.

And by the way, I noticed you keep mentioning you have 500 million+ fans. The entire PaRappa the Rapper series has not sold 500 million copies. By my calculations, it has sold somewhere around 5 million copies. To put this in perspective, Mario, the most popular and best-selling game franchise in the world, had sold roughly 262 million games as of 2011. Even Mario does not have 500 million fans. Just thought I'd mention that.

In closing: please refund our money and stop making a fool of yourself. That is all.

PaRappa the Scammer Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Hi there! If you're just tuning in, please read the first installment of this blog before this one, you can get to it using the sidebar on the right. Everything will make a lot more sense. For those of you without the time to do so, here's the gist of things:

Back in Winter 2012, my friend Jacob and I sent Dred Foxx, the voice of PaRappa the Rapper, $100 to have him do some lines for a fan cartoon on Newgrounds. Upon recieving the cash he repeatedly blew us off until finally I hit my deadline and asked for a refund, which he agreed to but never did. It is now 2014 and the money is still nowhere to be seen.

I had assumed this whole thing would die down, but my friend Saki decided it would be funny to make a post calling Dred a con-artist on the PaRappa Facebook Fan Page the other day to see what would happen.

Basically, everyone treats it as a joke post as they should. I wasn't going to do anything about it. It's been a long time and it's all old news, why bother bringing it up.

Then Dred showed up.

Now, like I said, I wasn't going to get involved. But the fact that Dred came in to specifically call Saki a liar when:

A. The post so far had been a clear joke and not worth his time, and

B. He could have just ignored it

...these got on my nerve. After his post, others began backing Dred up.

Well, after all this I wasn't going to let Dred have Saki come out looking like a liar. I decided to finally post a link to this blog on the Facebook fan page.

Ah, I see you've already met our first character, Brian. As far as I can tell, his only goal in life is to butt heads with anyone who he disagrees with. Here, he proceeds to call me a troll for not having a picture of myself on Facebook. Not content with this, he continues on after Saki calls him out:

Brian quickly resorts to victim blaming, suggesting that Jacob and I basically deserved to get conned. His good buddy Andre backs him up, unable to comprehend that Dred Foxx is anything less than a true saint. Hoping to clear things up, I respond.

Still Brian refuses to listen to reason, so I decide to reinforce my statements, as well as provide further proof for my case.

The video posted in the link can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEj39C_X8k

Jacob arrives to defend me. If you're wondering why he doesn't comment on the Dred Foxx business, it's because he's been staying on his good side hoping to get our money back while I play bad cop. Before Brian returns to spew more garbage though, a surprise guest arrives:

Dred Foxx's brother! Unlike most people in the group, he keeps a cool head. Now back to your regularly scheduled asshattery.

More victim blaming and excuse-making. Saki quickly tears him apart. 

Unsurprisingly, Brian does not respond after this. However, our favorite rapping dog does!

No joke: I was flabbergasted at this statement. I knew Dred's opinion of himself was inflated before, but 500 million fans? Me, capitalizing on his market? Him, a LEGEND??? If the dude was as rich and famous as he claims then 100 bones to him would be small potatoes, so why won't he return it? I come back with another "loooong winded message"!

(By the way, that PaRappa Album he's referring to? He's been "working on that" since before this whole scam business began. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it.)

After this, Dred didn't respond and I thought the matter was closed. Little did I know that he had actually moved to the PaRappa 3 Petition fangroup, and, well, take a look for yourself.

I'm sure you're all disgusted. No, not the chicken fryer rhyme. I'm talking about the part where the guy who stole $100 from me literally tells me to f*** off... and 18 PEOPLE LIKE IT

Now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I had posted my story on the PaRappa Fan Page, not in the petition group, so maybe they didn't know. Some people take the initiative and check things out for themselves.

Some don't take a stance, but acknowledge that Dred's behavior is unacceptable.

And some keep on kissing ass.

THE ODASITY.

I finally have had enough, and make one last statement hoping to perhaps change some minds.

And here we are now. I honestly don't know what to say. I knew Dred Foxx would never admit his mistake, but I didn't think other people in the fan group would actually back him up. Not only did I provide evidence of his douchebaggery towards me, but he outright confirms its legitimacy in the public forum and they STILL act like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread! Now I know that a scant few didn't act this way (and I thank them), and I'm not saying that he should get poo flung at him or anything, but the least people could do is let him know that stealing money from his fans and acting arrogant about it is not OK. If anyone reading this blog agrees, please send Dred a message on Facebook saying so. It might not mean much coming from just a few people, but the more who help, the more likely Jacob and I will get our money back. Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Dred goes apeshit!

We are witnessing a true meltdown, folks.

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!