Victims have been lulled into a false sense of security because it seems like they are buying the hottest ticket in town from someone they know, or a person linked to their trusted circle of friends.
But what is actually happening, according to multiple reports of the scam on 2GB’s Ben Fordham Live, hackers take control of a Facebook account and then post that they are selling their tickets to sold-out Taylor Swift concerts in Sydney and Melbourne next year.
Those posts pave the way for scammers to sell tickets that don’t exist and to then disappear with sometimes thousands of dollars.
Grace, a 20-year-old from Sydney, told 2GB she lost $1200 to the scam after seeing a “friend of a friend” on Facebook selling four top tier tickets to the Swift concerts.
“I messaged them and they sent a screenshot of the email confirmation of having bought these tickets. It had their name in it, it had the section of the tickets, it had four tickets,” she said.
“So none of my alarm bells were raised because that all looked above board to me.”
But as soon as Grace transferred $1200, that “friend” blocked her, cutting off all communication.
“I was like, ‘Oh God, this is ringing alarm bells now.'”
Fearing the worst, Grace phoned up that friend.
“When they finally answered they said, ‘Yeah, I’ve had six other calls like this today. My Facebook’s been hacked, that’s not me posting,'” Grace said.
Grace called her bank but said she was told they could do nothing.
“They were sorry, but (said) I was just gonna have to lose that money basically.”
Yin was among the millions of Aussie fans who spent days in June trying to buy Swift tickets online via Ticketek, only to miss out.
Desperate, she went looking on Facebook and seemed to find an avenue to make her Tay Tay dreams come true.
“I came across a Facebook group that claimed to have no scammers and sell legitimate Taylor Swift tickets. And I fell for it,” she said, explaining how she was duped.
“There seemed to be so many people selling tickets. I thought they were legitimate people.”
Yin started talking to one seller who showed her an email which appeared to confirm they owned a real ticket.
Convinced, Yin paid $300 for a single ticket. But then the person said they couldn’t send just one ticket, and that she’d have to buy two.
So Yin forked out another $300, taking her total spend to $600.
“Then they … blocked me and deleted all their messages to erase their steps ,” Yin said.
She reported the group to Facebook, contacted the admin of the group but then “realised that they were all full of scammers”.
Nick was also scammed by a hacker on Facebook who was masquerading as a “friend of a friend”.
After Nick made contact, the scammer offered him various tickets and even asked Nick how his family was doing.
Nick ended up losing $600, as the scammer vanished immediately after receiving the transfer of funds.
VIP packages which were sold one day before the presales opened were priced between $349.90 and $1249.90.
After tickets to the MCG and Accor Stadium sold out in hours, Swift announced she was putting on two additional shows for the Australian leg of her Eras tour.
All of the glitz and glamour from the Brownlow Medal
Those extra tickets, one in Sydney and the other in Melbourne, were also snapped up instantly.
Frontier Touring described ticket demand as “unprecedented”.
With so many fans missing out, scammers have tapped into a massive pool of disappointment and desperation.
9news.com.au has contacted Facebook for comment.
