Football fans at high risk of ticket scams

Football fans eager to attend highly anticipated events such as the Champions League final and the Euros tournament need to be wary of ticket scams, experts warned, as fraudsters look to take advantage of the frenzied demand.

Upcoming matches, such as this weekend’s clash between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid at Wembley, are at a high risk of being the object of purchase scams, where criminals try to sell fake or non-existent tickets, often for sold-out events.

Reports of football-related ticket scams to Santander rose by 82 per cent last year, the high street bank said, with nearly half of the victims targeted aged between 19 and 34 years old. In total, football fans who banked with the lender lost £113,000 in ticket scams last year, it said, and estimated that the amount could rise above £200,000 this year.

“This will be the first Euros since 2016 [many fans] can attend due to the pandemic, and with both England and Scotland qualifying, we know many will be desperate to get their hands on tickets to the big games,” said Chris Ainsley, head of fraud risk management at Santander. “Unfortunately, criminals know this too, and they’ll be looking for ways to exploit fans’ excitement and extort money from them.”

Santander said more than half of ticket scams originated on Facebook while 15 per cent took place on X, the social media platform.

Barclays Bank also warned customers this week that men were on average losing more than twice as much money as women from ticket scams. Male customers lost an average £325, compared with £156 for women, the bank said, with this summer’s major sporting events a prime target for scammers. 

But the bank’s research found that the difference was linked to the disparity in ticket prices for events that men wanted to attend, since both men and women were equally likely to be scammed.

Football tickets accounted for more than half of all sports tickets scams, according to the survey that Barclays conducted. Tennis and cricket were the next most cited sports, ahead of horse racing and athletics.

“Where there’s a popular ticketed event, there’s always a scammer looking to take advantage of that demand,” said Kirsty Adams, fraud and scams expert at Barclays. “Unfortunately, it can be easy to get caught up in a ticket scam when you’re desperate to try and secure a ticket to an oversubscribed event.”

Experts say that customers looking to protect themselves should only buy tickets for Euro 2024 directly from Uefa. The ballot and last-minute tickets from UEFA have now all sold out, but Uefa has said that if any further tickets become available, they will be available direct from its website.

It is also advisable to avoid paying by bank transfer or PayPal, but use safer payment methods such as debit and credit cards.

The warnings come after a UK Finance report last week found that British customers lost a record £86mn to purchase scams last year.

“It can be devastating for sports fans to hand over their hard-earned money for a ticket to see their favourite team or event, only to discover it doesn’t actually exist,” said Adams.