Music fans, you know the drill. You’ve signed up to your favourite festival’s portal, set three alarms on your phone, and then find you are 4,568th in the queue. So you wait and wait, for what feels like an eternity. And then you realise that the event is sold out. It’s at this point that you’re most vulnerable to the scammerverse.
In the rush of trying (and failing) to get tickets for the festival – or whatever gig you’ve been anticipating since its announcement – you might try to get in the door no matter what.
It’s this Fomo that feeds the scammers, who are ready to exploit fans’ desperation – and they get away with it. In a survey, 55% of music fans said they weren’t confident they’d spot a fake-ticket scam.
Whatever you feel about scams, and indeed your scam-savviness, if you’re a big music fan, you’re a vulnerable target. Picture this: you get an alert that someone is selling a ticket to a big gig you want to go to, so you waste no time getting in touch. You look him up on Instagram and there are a handful of posts seemingly about nothing and he only has a few followers. Is he legit? Despite your reservations you’re desperate for a ticket so you push on.
Then he starts deflecting your questions about the seat number and booking reference. Next he wants the money transferred directly to his account. All your queries are met with a terse: “Do you want the tickets or not? You’ve got 10 minutes to decide.”
This is a scammer trying to use your desperation to his advantage. It will all be done under the guise of wanting to make the sale quicker and easier for you, but don’t ignore his boundary crossing. Even in this heightened environment, where you so want to believe the tickets are at your fingertips, trust your gut. Instead look for legitimate websites and trusted vendors using secure payment methods such as Visa Click to Pay.
But what happens when it’s your friend selling the ticket? That’s surely OK? Or is it? Another way scammers find their in is with a good old-fashioned catfish. Last year saw one of the biggest band reunions of all time – and with it came scams so sophisticated they likely caused friendships rifts as well as financial ones. Scammers, looking to get their claws in at every opportunity, were going as far as hacking real social media accounts, posing as their owners and posting about spare tickets to family and friends. They were even DMing back and forth, adding kisses on the ends of sentences, fire emojis and hearts galore. So how, you ask, when they’ve literally taken on the social idiosyncrasies of your loved one, could you possibly tell it’s actually a scammer?
First, look at the post itself – does it stick out from the rest of their highly curated feed? Are they a bit of an artist on Canva and yet this post uses a font you know they’d never choose? And are they, your friend, only willing to chat to you via Instagram DMs? Make sure you WhatsApp or text the person directly (hell, even call them!) and only purchase the ticket once you truly know it’s them. The irony is you may even start feeling like a scammer yourself with all the details you’ll need them to confirm!
It’s not just fake tickets causing us grief in the music world – now we have to contend with completely fake websites too. AI has made it easier than ever to realistically mimic official sites. When a friend showed me a fake site for our favourite metal band, I was uncomfortable by how authentic it looked. As a music journalist I’ve had a lot of experience of ticket buying and even I would have easily fallen for a scam like that. The clue to the scam was in the url – it included extra words that aren’t part of the genuine site’s url and unexpected characters (a zero in place of an O). And don’t be taken in by a padlock icon or https:// at the start as this only means that the connection between your device and the site is encrypted. It does not prove the site is safe or legitimate – scammers routinely use free SSL certificates.
Rob Cameron, group country manager, UK & Ireland, at Visa, says: “As scams become more sophisticated, consumers shouldn’t have to question whether their payments are protected. For more than 30 years, Visa has used AI to help combat fraud, helping identify and stop threats before they can cause harm. And while stopping scams remains the priority, when consumers pay with Visa, they can do so with greater confidence, knowing that there is a well established, industry recognised resolution framework in place that can help eligible cardholders recover their money if they fall victim to a scam.”
In the online world of disinformation, it’s important to be vigilant about fake events too: could a secret gig be so secret that it’s actually completely made up? Is there really a festival in Malta with such an amazing looking lineup it makes all the others look passé? If you’re in doubt, double-check the band or artist’s official channels to see if the information lines up. What are the other fans saying? Also be mindful of pretend VIP upgrades such as meet-and-greets when there aren’t any, or offers for early entry that you can’t get via official channels.
While it can seem like there are scammers at every turn, waiting to exploit the very things that make being a music fan so wonderful, the best way to beat them is to simply take a beat. Before you send that DM, click on that link, or tap on that transfer. There is, after all, always fun to be had.
Find out more about the ways Visa can help protect you from ticket fraud
