Complaint Review: Richard Miranda - Shakopee Minnesota

 Richard Miranda aka Richard M. Luciano uses his company Pamir Entertainment, LLC to run two different scams on young, inexperienced musicians and artists in the Twin Cities area.  I was involved in one of the scams and have spoken to others that were involved in the other.  He has been running this same scam for years as I have talked to others who have crossed paths with Miranda and lost money to him. 

Scam #1- Miranda markets his company as a major label connected, full-service recording studio/ Record Label for "label-ready artists." The artists put down a deposit (typically $500) to start recording an album, and upon completion of the album, the artist is supposed to receive their deposit back and Pamir makes their money off of the sales of the album. For one reason or another, the project gets sabotaged or the artist is denied studio time, the project never gets completed and the artist is not refunded the deposit.

In my experience, a legitimate record label does NOT require and artist to pay money up front, the label invests THEIR money in an artist they believe will make them money in the long run.  There are blogs and informational sites online that explain the operations of many other scam labels just like Pamir. I have personally spoken to people who have lost money to Miranda in this fashion.

Scam #2 - This is the scam I was a victim of.  Miranda proposed to me that I be a business partner with him in his studio.  If I were to invest money in his studio, I would then be a 50/50 partner and would be entitled to not only 50% of the income made from the money paid by the artists to record but also 50% of the royalties made by any albums that get published.  He also promised me that I would make my investment back within 60 days.  All of these terms were on the contract that Miranda and I signed. 

After investing thousands of dollars, I attempted to to be involved in the meetings with potential clients, have access to accounting records and make time to be in the studio while artists were recording.  Miranda pushed me away from being involved and claimed that I was "simply an investor" and that I should just sit back, relax and let him make me money. I also wasn't informed that the money paid up front by the artists was a deposit until AFTER I invested, so ultimately I wasn't entitled to any of that income. His stories weren't adding up, he wasn't following through on anything and I started to ask questions. Miranda tried to talk his way out of everything, started getting very upset and even yelling at me at times to scare me off. 

I started researching Miranda by doing a background check and finding that he has a criminal history of fraud and a long list of judgements against him.  I contacted a few people and found that others had been roped into this same scam.  I then started pushing to get my money back from Miranda.  He gave me every excuse in the book as to why he couldn't give it back to me, including that my investment money was somehow involved in a deal that one of the artists was getting from Universal Records. As 50% partner, you would think that I would have been involved in a business deal like that.  That artist was never signed to Universal and is no longer even on Pamir's artist roster.

Eventually the 60 day deadline had come and I told him he had to give me the money or I would take legal action.  He again refused to pay me and said he didn't have the money.  Ultimately I got my lawyer involved and got my money back.  DO NOT get involved with Producer Richard Miranda, Pamir Entertainment or any other company he is a part of.  You will get scammed out of your money!