Caitríona Redmond: Protecting yourself from ticket scams this summer

I got caught out in a football ticket scam, and I was mortified. Here's some advice on how to watch out for scams

Ticket scams can increase at this time of year. Caitríona Redmond shares advice on how to protect yourself from them. Picture: iStock

It's concert season; the Marquee will shortly reopen for a series of popular events, starting with the K-POP Forever! Tribute and, at the time of writing, finishing with Kevin Bridges. And let’s not forget the upcoming highly anticipated music festivals such as All Together Now and Electric Picnic.

Unfortunately, unsuspecting music fans are ripe pickings for ticket scammers. Using tricks such as scarcity, availability, and price reductions, many consumers will shell out their hard-earned money this summer for what they believe to be tickets, and will be left with nothing in return.

Protecting ourselves from scams is becoming harder than ever, thanks to advances in technology and AI.

What should you look out for?

Tickets are often now digital only and are not sold in paper anymore. Many won’t be available for transfer until about 48 hours before a festival or event, as is the case for most concerts in Ireland, regardless of the location. If anybody offers tickets for sale at an early point, the chances are high that they are a scammer.

Facebook is rife with groups, aimed at music fans, which are marked as buying and selling tickets.

I came across one group purporting to be for buying and selling tickets for a well-known music festival, and which had thousands of members. The group had several moderators or admins, and from what I can see, none are based in Ireland. Interestingly, several of the admin team also run other ticket sales groups, including events outside of Ireland.

If a moderator or admin on Facebook has their personal profile locked, with no information available on who they are, or where they are based, it’s instantly a red flag.

“No Scammers Allowed Here” — so says banners on another ticket group. The issue is there is no way of moderating or preventing scams. Essentially, the groups are self-moderated.

What happens when someone says they have tickets available? Once a Facebook group member comments, that creates an opportunity for the scammers to send a direct message to the poor person who only wants to go to a concert.

That direct message is a chance to engage with a music fan and play on their vulnerability. They’ll get messages like “I only have 2 tickets left” indicating scarcity, or “I have somebody else interested”.

The language used can be an interesting one. Some scammers may use AI to amend their text to the local vernacular. Say you’re from Cork, then you’d get a message such as, “hiya, saw your post about the tickets. Give me a shout there”. But from Dublin, the same message might read, “alright pal, seen your post about the tickets. You still need them? Let me know”.

These text messages might reassure music fans and lead them to believe they are dealing with somebody based around the corner, when in fact they could be more likely to be based outside of Ireland.

When it comes to payment, this is generally made via Revolut, where a direct transfer to somebody not in your address book may prompt a fraudulent pop-up notice. Eager to get the tickets, people will bypass this warning and send the money to a very willing scammer. The scammer will instantly withdraw the money from their account to cash, and there’s very little chance of reclaiming it. You will never hear from them again.

How do I know this?

I got caught out in a football ticket scam this way two years ago and I was mortified. I was in Liverpool with big LFC fans in tow, and a match that day. I was convinced I could get a pair of tickets to the match and be the best mother in the world.

The seller wrote like a true Liverpudlian and pressurised me the closer it got to kick-off time. That should have rung my alarm bells. In the end, I kissed goodbye to €140 and was ghosted by the seller.

While I’m normally very careful and savvy when it comes to online scams, I was carried away in the excitement of sending my football fans to Anfield. Being off my guard cost me a lot of money, and I hope you’ll learn from my mistake and not be taken in.

Sometimes, we just have to accept that we can’t always go to the must-see concert and instead live vicariously through our friends at the gig, even if it’s difficult to go without. Into every life a little rain must fall.

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Resale tickets are released onto Ticketmaster as soon as the original seller hands them back.

I’ve discovered a new option for when you can’t stay on the app all day or keep hitting refresh.

It’s an application that crosschecks gig availability and sends you a notification if tickets become available for your chosen event. 

TicketRobin will send you an instant email or WhatsApp message as soon as tickets that match your requirement crop up online. You can then open Ticketmaster and reserve your chosen tickets. The cost depends on how frequently you’d like the app to check for tickets, but you can start on a free trial.