Thousands of fans of pop megastar Taylor Swift have been hit by a wave of concert ticket scams ahead of her tour in the UK later this year, a British bank said Wednesday.
Concert ticket scams had risen by 158 percent since last summer compared to the same period a year earlier, the bank added.
US singer Beyonce, British band Coldplay and musician Harry Styles are the artists most commonly used in the targeting, it noted.
Across all concert ticket scams, victims were losing £133 on average.
A search of Facebook revealed dozens of unofficial groups had been set up, many with tens of thousands of members, specifically for people looking to buy and sell tickets for Swift concerts, Lloyds said.
Facebook Marketplace, the social media company’s trading platform, has various listings for tickets at venues nationwide, the bank said.
The scams usually involve fake adverts, posts or listings on social media, offering tickets at discounted prices, or access to events which have already sold out at inflated prices.
Victims are asked to pay upfront for the tickets, but once the payment is made, the scammers disappear. This leaves the buyer without the tickets and out of pocket.
“If you’re being asked to pay by bank transfer, particularly from a seller you’ve found on social media, that should immediately set alarm bells ringing,” said Lloyds Bank fraud prevention director Liz Ziegler.
