SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): As entertainment acts return to Singapore in full swing, at least 137 people have been duped by fake concert ticket scams since March, losing about S$170,000 in total.
The police said on Thursday (April 20) that the victims had chanced upon advertisements for concert tickets on various e-commerce platforms, including Carousell and China’s Xiaohongshu.
Some of these advertisements were also put up on Twitter.
To convince victims into making advance payments for the tickets, the scammers would create a false sense of urgency by claiming that the sales were time sensitive, or that they were limited.
But victims realised they were scammed only when they did not receive the tickets they had paid for.
In some instances, they received fake tickets and were later denied entry at concerts.
The police advised the public to adopt precautionary measures such as purchasing tickets only from authorised sellers or reputable sellers and arranging physical meet-ups with sellers to verify the authenticity of the tickets before paying.
“The police would like to remind the public to be discerning when shopping online, especially when purchasing concert tickets from online third-party resellers.”
Concert ticket scams have been prevalent over the past year.
Between January and November 2022, there were 136 police reports filed in relation to such scams, with total losses amounting to at least $111,000 during that period, or more than 53 times the amount lost in the same period in 2021.
For more information on scams, people can visit scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline on 1800-722-6688.
Anyone with information on such scams may call the police hotline on 1800-255-0000 or submit information confidentially online at police.gov.sg/iwitness
