Buying Sports or Concert Tickets? Here's How to Avoid Scams

They also know that many fans aren’t yet familiar with the technology. If a person hasn’t bought tickets from an online site before, and a seller provides them with a QR code, they may not realize that “there’s really no way to test it until you’re at the gate,” says Josh Planos, a Better Business Bureau (BBB) spokesperson.

How do ticket scams work?

With stars such as Billy Joel, Coldplay, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar on tour this year, demand for seats makes it tempting for people to look in unusual places for tickets and to suspend their suspicions. Those conditions create a perfect situation for scammers, experts say.

​You see somebody supposedly selling tickets to this concert that’s sold out, "and your mind starts going in overdrive. You're like, 'Oh boy, I can buy tickets!’ ” explains Murray. “We’ve seen case after case of perfectly intelligent, normally skeptical people who fall for the scam because they get caught up in this euphoria.”

Anti-fraud experts say that ticket scammers often ply their trade on social media and online marketplaces such as Craigslist and Facebook, which have become last-resort options for would-be concertgoers. But some brazen scammers even create entire fake ticket-selling websites of their own.

“There’s a certain portion of reports coming from folks who thought they were buying a ticket from Ticketmaster because it was a site that looked like Ticketmaster,” Planos says. “But they didn’t double-check that URL, and it was a lookalike site.”

Once a ticket scammer convinces a person to purchase a concert ticket, they’ll usually ask the target to send money through a peer-to-peer payment app such as Zelle or Venmo rather than using a credit card, according to Steve Baker, a former Federal Trade Commission official who now publishes the Baker Fraud Newsletter.

That’s when the bad stuff starts to happen. The scammer may send a counterfeit replica of the ticket, or simply disappear without sending anything at all — “a straight theft kind of deal,” as Baker explains.

How to protect yourself from ticket scammers 

Some experts recommend that music fans stick to getting their tickets from name-brand sellers such as Ticketmaster, or if they’re going to venture into the resale market, only do business with sellers who belong to the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB), an industry group that requires members to follow a code of ethics.

“If you’re dealing with a NATB member, it’s guaranteed, and if they failed to deliver that ticket, it’s not just a refund, you get 200 percent,” explains Gary Adler, NATB’s executive director and counsel.  

You can get a list of members at natb.org or at verifiedticketsource.com. The BBB has a page with tips on buying tickets.

Here are some additional safety tips from Teresa Murray at U.S. PIRG.

• Always treat someone selling tickets to a hot concert or big sports event with skepticism since these events are likely to be sellouts.
• If you do buy from an individual, it should be someone whom you know personally, such as a relative, close friend or coworker.
• Unless you know a seller personally, never pay for tickets with a peer-to-peer payment service such as Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, CashApp or a wire transfer. If the person turns out to be a scammer, you won’t be able to get your money back (these apps don’t have the same consumer protections that credit cards do).  When you’re buying tickets, check a floor chart to make sure that the section and seat number actually exist.
• If you’re buying tickets from a name-brand site such as Ticketmaster or StubHub, make sure that the URL is the correct one, and not for a look-alike site created by a scammer.  

What to do if you are a victim of a ticket scam

• File a local police report and notify your state attorney general.
• Contact the Federal Trade Commission online at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, or by phone at 877-382-4357. Or report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov. Not every complaint leads to enforcement action, but the information can help officials spot trends and sometimes identify the criminals. 
• The BBB takes reports of consumer scams on their Scam Tracker page.
• For support and guidance, the trained fraud specialists at the free AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline, 877 -908-3360, can share information on what to do next and how to avoid future scams. The AARP Fraud Watch Network also offers online group support sessions.

For more on Lisa Turner's experience with a concert ticket scam, tune into this episode of AARP’s podcast The Perfect Scam.

This article, originally published in 2023, has been updated.