The struggle of trying to get tickets for your favourite music artist is a well-known frustration for fans. Harriet Hawkins, a student nurse from Hertfordshire, wanted to attend the last night of Harry Styles’ tour at Wembley this year, knowing it would be a special night. After her search was unsuccessful on Ticketmaster, she turned to Facebook where she found several people selling tickets that Harriet claims to be “100% a scam.” Eventually, she received a confirmation for a ticket costing £150 and felt the seller had “provided all the proof she could possibly give.” After receiving the attachment for her Apple Wallet, she quickly realised that it wasn’t real. The ticket number wasn’t in the same format as any other Harry tickets she had previously had, and after sending a screenshot to the buyer, Harriet was immediately blocked.
After contacting her bank, Harriet was reimbursed for the lost expense. She believes that the rise in ticket scams is due to the high prices sold on traditional platforms. The cost of seeing live music now means “people are looking for cheaper tickets.” Compared with last year, five major banks in the UK saw a two-and-a-half times increase in music ticket scams reported to them this summer.
CVC, a Welsh band, says that more dates mean “more of an opportunity for people to scam.” After their drummer, Tom Fry, fell victim to a bogus ticket sale, they have become more aware of the scams and are trying to raise awareness. Guitarist Dave Bassey says the band got “flooded” with comments on posts from people who claimed to have spare tickets to sold-out shows. When their fans fall for a hoax and “pay good money for tickets,” Dave says it is the band who get messages asking “what’s going on here?”. Consumer group Which? agrees that the price of tickets helps to provide the perfect environment for scammers. They note that scammers are always looking for anything they can use to hook in victims.
Emily Seymour from Which? recommends that people should be more cautious about buying tickets online and take extra precautions. She advises people to look at the follow count of a profile and when it was set up, do a reverse image search of their profile, and avoid things that are too good to be true. She also suggests that people stick to official retailers when purchasing tickets
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