These pages will often contact venues to accept them as hosts in order to become platforms for ticket scammers.Īccording to Sharp, small to medium sized events have so far been the main targets. (What a shame that sweet grieving 60-something ‘Eva Josephine’ won’t be able to attend the piss-up fest that is the University of Auckland Law, Medicine and Engineering Students Stein)Īccording to Taylor MacGregor, who runs Auckland gig promotion company Moral Support, he’s had to take down five fake event pages for a single (real) upcoming gig so far. Or they can really pull on your heartstrings: (Gym buff ‘Kevin Miller’, who lives in Houston, Texas, has somehow got his hands on tickets to a gig at K Road’s Whammy Bar) However, “the things used to improve our life are often co-opted by criminals to try and harm us,” says Cocker. There have been tremendous improvements in AI technology in recent years – think of the little pop-up question boxes on websites that ask if you have any questions. This includes making social media accounts that look human and sound… kind of human, and posting lots of content.

Hold up, what’s the deal with these bots?īots (internet robots) are able to replicate, clone, and complete high volumes of activity online. Gus Sharp, director of club promotions collective Friendly Potential, thinks that the bots may automatically search for posts with keywords such as “sold out”. They can appear as comments from fake Facebook profiles offering ticket resales, or even as fake event pages. And so while ticket scammers have always existed, gig promoters are noticing a surge in NZ events being targeted by online ticket scamming bots. Who even uses Paypal?Īccording to Netsafe’s Martin Cocker, “almost every scam type is up from the usual numbers” in the wake of the Covid crisis. There are strange gaps in sentences, they’re evasive about sending proof of purchase, and seem really pushy for your Paypal details.

Plus the gig’s on tomorrow night, so worth a shot, right?īut then things start getting weird. They’ve got profile pics with their kids, even wedding photos. You’re about to give up when a dozen comments pop up offering to resell tickets. But you’ve seen it too late – it’s already SOLD OUT. Imagine this: you’re scrolling through Facebook and spot a gig tomorrow night featuring your favourite shoegazing long haired musos. Ticket scams? Bots? What’s all this about? Sherry Zhang explains how it works, and shares her own exchange with a ticket scam bot. As one of the few places on earth where live events are still taking place, New Zealand is seeing its Facebook events pages overrun by scammers trying to trick fans out of cash.

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