Los Angeles post-prog band Intronaut release statement regarding being ripped off by promoter

I decided to make this a public announcement because I want everyone out there to know that it’s not OK to steal from musicians, or really anyone in general, and I think as a society we should apply the no mercy rule to anyone who does.

Almost 11 months ago, Intronaut went to Bangalore, India to play a school-sponsored festival at the Indian Institute of Science called Pravega 2017, which we had a great time at. The student group who put on the festival presumably used school funds to pay a talent buyer, Renu McGarry of Orka Networks, to bring us over to play the show for a fee that was agreed upon between her and us. We should have suspected something was wrong when the first wire transfer we received (the day we boarded the airplane to India) bounced, or was faked as we can assume now. We did have prior interactions with her as an acquaintance and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Now it has been 11 months of continuous faked transfer receipts, excuses, and other empty promises, with the occasional payment of a small fraction of the total amount, while Orka Networks continues to do business with other bands from around the world, while they clearly kept our money for themselves.

Now, from what I see online, they are dealing with the fallout of what I can only assume was trying to scam another band, as well as their Indian fans out of ticket money for cancelled events, and at this point I don’t expect to ever receive our money. Whether this is due to malicious, full-on scamming or just plain incompetence is not important anymore. These people should not be let anywhere near other people’s money. I urge anyone considering to do business with them to do anything BUT that.

To our friends and fans in India, we love you and we hope to come back again in the future.”

The other band that the exact same promoters screwed over was Gorod who released this statement:

Safe to say that we as a website now have enough proof to highly suggest bands/agents/managers to stay clear of Orka Networks.

UPDATE: Apparently this organization has also ripped off other international bands: Funeral in Heaven and Monuments.