25.07.2023 - The fraudulent trade in tickets for festivals and concerts thrives during the summer season. Cybercriminals take advantage of the fact that many people spontaneously decide to attend an event and are looking for a ticket, or that ticket holders cannot use their ticket and want to sell it. From the mass of reports received, the following are two examples of a fraudulent sale and a fraudulent purchase of festival tickets. In addition, the NCSC received more than 1,000 reports for the first time last week, despite it being the holiday season. This flood of reports was due to a wave of fraudulent telephone calls in which the English-speaking callers pretended to be customs or police authorities and asked for personal information.
Spontaneously going to a music festival with some friends? In most cases, you have to be quick on your feet to purchase a ticket. The resulting time pressure opens the door for online fraudsters. The NCSC receives many reports of various fraudulent practices during the festival season.
These scams are also a thorn in the side of the organisers, and so they rely on personalised tickets and their own apps for reselling them.
Fraudulent ticket sales
One report last week concerned the Paléo festival in Nyon. Those who were still looking for tickets came across a whole series of fraudulent posts on Facebook, all of which looked very similar.
The Paléo Festival relies on its own app to pass on tickets. Without the app, it is not possible to use the tickets and they cannot be printed out.
The fraudsters created a website imitating this app and inserted the details of the tickets apparently sold and the email address of the buyer. A screenshot of this fake page was presented as supposed proof of the ticket transfer.
The fraudsters then requested a screenshot of the TWINT transfer. However, the tickets never arrived.
The person to whom the phone number belongs gave credible assurance that they did not have a TWINT account. It is unclear how the fraudsters managed to create such an account.
Fraudulent purchase of tickets
Another case was experienced by a festival-goer attending the OpenAir Frauenfeld. In possession of a spare ticket, he tried to sell it on Instagram. An alleged ticket agent contacted him and requested a photo of the ticket as proof and promised to pay immediately – after all, as a ticket agent, he could lose his good reputation. When the agreed payment was not made, the original owner of the ticket reported this to the organiser and was thus able to have the ticket invalidated.
The fraudster could not use the ticket and thus responded angrily.
- If you suspect that the seller has fraudulent intentions, immediately stop the communication and ignore future emails.
- In the event of financial loss, the NCSC recommends filing a report with the cantonal prosecution authorities. You can search for police stations in your area and their telephone numbers on the Suisse ePolice website:
https://www.suisse-epolice.ch/#/search-station (in French, German, Italian).
- Inform the classified ad platform about the incident. It can block the corresponding offers, buyers and sellers.
- If you provided a copy of your ID card or passport to the fraudsters, report the incident to your commune's ID or passport office.
Current statistics
Last week's reports by category:
Last modification 25.07.2023
