According to data issued by the Get Safe Online awareness initiative and the City of London police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, more than a fifth of the crimes were instigated via Facebook, with Twitter accounting for a further 6%.
The figures come in the wake of warnings that some fans are putting themselves at risk by sharing images of event tickets on social media sites that can then be used by scammers to create fakes.
At least GBP 5.2 million was lost to ticket fraud in 2015 – up from GBP 3.35 million in 2014. However, this headline figure is likely to underestimate the scale of the problem, as it only includes actual reported crimes. Some people are too embarrassed to own up to having been scammed, while others decide to write off the loss.
The nature of the frauds can vary, but it usually involves tickets being sold that either do not exist or never materialise.
Those looking for tickets on Gumtree should be particularly careful: 22% of all the reported incidents took place on the classified ads website. Meanwhile, those most at risk of buying fake or non-existent tickets were found to be people aged between 20 and 29, who made up 28% of all cases.
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