How sad. What a corrupt world in which we live.  People are just mean. No other word to describe such.

An old sage in 853 BC wrote "your deeds shall return on your own head."  May it be so.

From Brett Ridgeway on Facebook:

”Everything is gone. Over ten years of hard work…GONE.  Over 700 video lessons GONE. 28,000 YouTube subscribers gone. Family memories of my mom and dad, GONE. My livelihood as has been, GONE. I’m devastated. 

We are trying everything we know to fix this but it looks bleak. I may have to start over using the files I still have in edited files. 

A few days ago a company contacted me to review their products.  The company is legit, but a person who contacted me was not, and was using them as a cover. We correspondent back-and-forth reviewing the products he was going to send. But then he sent me an application, and it looked like through the company. Had me sign into Google, etc… it would never let us complete it and we even tried multiple times, but it evidently gave him enough information to steal my YouTube account.

From ChatGPT: Even more concerning, cybersecurity researchers at ESET documented an active campaign in October 2026 involving fake audio/video equipment sponsorships and fraudulent Google sign-in pages. 

So fellow musicians, beware, please!  

I will be losing my YouTube monetization and basically starting with no subscribers. Please please please, share this with every or any group you might know or person who plays.”