Taylor Swift tickets.. help me avoid being scammed again?!

[Id02242730]

So desperate for tickets that I have already been scammed by a very clever and genuine fraudster. She wanted £130 per ticket and I needed 4. Provided plenty proof of tickets including seat numbers. Of course I’ve never done this before and fell for it hook, line and sinker. I immediately detected rat and contacted bank.. didn’t get through for an age and by this time she had deleted all her messages. As such, this meant my evidence was limited so i had all my messages but hers were just showing deleted message. Obvious what had happened but according to bank and fraud uk, not enough to get my money back.
so I’ve now been looking a viagogo.. is anything legitimate?
Considering paying silly money if I have a guarantee.
what’s the chances realistically?

Sorry.. my screenshots were not enough to prosecute basically! Because she had deleted all her messages asking for money. I screenshot the seats and lots of other info but…

Don’t you need a code to access any of the tickets though?

Wow that’s an encouraging statement. Genuine tickets will come on sale closer to the dates, she is playing about 10 shows in the UK alone. Closer to the date people will get sick, have travel cancelled and more. I am convinced I can still find tickets for one of the Wembley shows.

OP there was a storm before one of the Australia shows and lots of fans had flights cancelled or didn’t fancy it anymore and thousands of tickets became available a few hours before. You never know.

How annoying! Do you have her name? I'd be naming and shaming her all over the place.

Hopefully karma (sorry!) gets her.

We didn’t get a code for the Ticketmaster sale but found out from calling the stadium directly that most of the venues have hospitality tickets available from a company called Seat Unique who you will find by googling. There are some VERY expensive tickets on there stretching to thousands of pounds but I was able to find tickets for less than the price of the VIP tickets available through Ticketmaster …

Agree with you completely but at worst maybe I could not tell them and try at the gate.. failing that my only option is listen from outside 🤷🏼‍♀️ but it’s not the same…

Amazing! That’s fab you managed to get some and thanks for the tip but nothing for Edinburgh I can see. Will keep an eye though!

I’m already signed up with SU, but the prices are ridiculous.

I just tried for Edinburgh but you still need a code. Wonder if they will release presale later. Said presale available for Dublin?

Yes of course but not sure I can…? I know where she’s sitting too so if anyone near her maybe you could squirt her with ketchup for me!

Totally agree … but a few months ago there were some for some venues in the £300-£400 range, cheaper than the VIP tickets so may be an option for some people if they reappear, as they did a couple of times for the Cardiff concert.

yes for the official sale, no for the official resale. Though given OP mentioned she passed up an expensive package I reckon she had a code but couldn't access the sale until all the cheaper and face value seats had been snapped up.

As a side note, I think (not 100%) the time for sale of VIP package tickets has been and gone now as they need to post out the packages in advance those are no longer sellable. So the potential pool of tickets is further reduced.

To anyone wanting tickets make sure you tell everyone you know so if they have tickets and something comes up closer to the time you are their first reserve. I have about 5 people who have said they want my ticket and not all of them I would have guessed would be interested.

Don't give up! I had access when tickets were released but didn't manage to get tickets, daughters were gutted. I kept checking resale on axs and ticketmaster multiple times a day and managed to get 3 on axs. You just need to be really quick as they sell in seconds. Good luck!!

Yes of course but not sure I can…? I know where she’s sitting too so if anyone near her maybe you could squirt her with ketchup for me!

Sorry if I misunderstood your previous post but I'd definitely be reporting to the police if you haven't already.

You need an access code though.

I'd have thought if its a scam the tickets don't even exist and she's sent you a screen shot of photoshopped tickets and didn't have the tickets in the first place

Ticket transfers haven't started yet so do not use anything other than the official resale sites (ticketmaster or axs). There will be tickets available no doubt nearer the time but only buy from eg a neighbour you can trust after transfers have started. I have tickets so I do understand why you want them, but buyer beware, there are no tickets available yet except those two sources.

I'm getting a resale ticket for take that but that's a local person who's husband can no longer go, I'm paying her cash on the day, quite different to a random internet person.

You only need a code for the original ticket sale not resale, it's open to everyone

Brilliant, that’s what I needed to hear thank you. And enjoy 🫶🏻

Hmm you could try the Taylor swift Swap thread on Mumsnet because they are all genuine posters. 😜 NOT .. I keep posting on the thread telling people they are being stupid (I try and phrase it more nicely) if they think they aren't risking getting scammed. No one genuine is going to try and sell tickets to a random person when they could sell them back to ticket master for a profit.

Sorry, OP, I know it's not your fault but some people are very gullible. We get Taylor Swift tickets on our local Facebook pages all the time. I've not seen a real one yet. If anyone actually had tickets they wanted to sell they could and for some weird reason didn't want to use ticketmaster don't you think they would be able to find friends or colleagues to sell them too.

You can gat tickets on ticketmaster etc with some luck and with an awful lot of persistence.

Good luck OP.

Well yes, that’s most likely the case but it certainly looks legit!

Out of interest where did the fraudster advertise the tickets?

I was literally thinking the same thing. You’re better staying at home mate

I know it won’t help you get tickets, but do you have evidence on your phone of how long you had to wait to get through to their fraud department to alert them to what was happening.

if you do I would appeal against their decision not to help you and if necessary escalate to the Ombudsmen.

I had to wait two hours (with them repeatedly dropping the call) to speak to the Barclaycard fraud department earlier this week. That just isn’t acceptable if you know you are in the middle of being scammed and have no other way to stop what is going on. When I did eventually get through the lady dealing with my issue told me they have numerous layers of information on every single transaction and can easily identify IP addresses and details of the recipient.

It is easy for the Banks to decline to help but I think persistence and the involvement of the Ombudsmen might possibly help you to recover your money

Well yes this. Absolutely.
And I always considered myself to be relatively astute but desperation I guess slackens the senses 😬
But I will be honest I was suspicious and knew it was a risk. I told my husband I’m prepared to take the risk. More fool me. Famous last words.
I think listening to TS songs at every waking moment when my daughter home forced me to do crazy things!