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Facebook is ‘taking action’ against ticket fraud

Facebook claims it is “taking action” to stop fraudulent activity from taking place on its platform, after it was discovered that thousands of pounds have been stolen via ticketing scams in the past year.

The Times newspaper reported that the social media giant has promised to launch a dedicated scam-reporting button for users in May.

Two weeks prior to this discovery, Times Money had uncovered fraudulent investment schemes on Facebook amounting to more than £4.5m (€5.3m/$6m) since April.

Touts are taking to musicians’ fan pages claiming to have tickets and requesting people send them direct messages. Fraudsters then request bank details to pay for the passes and, once the money has been transferred, they disappear.

One name that has popped up on the fan pages of Mumford & Sons, George Ezra, the Paper Kites and many others offering three of four tickets for each is “Sammie-Lou Teasley.”

While Facebook has said this account has since been taken down, hundreds of pounds have been stolen from several different people.

One man, who had wanted to buy tickets for a gig by Slash at the Hammersmith Apollo, told the Times: “She had a conversational style that was very natural. It wasn’t a transactional way of talking and was designed to allow me to take my guard down.”

He paid £100 into her bank account, and passed on his email address for the tickets to be sent three days before the gig, but was left out of pocket and with no tickets.

Action Fraud, the fraud-reporting service run by City of London police, claims ticket fraud on social media saw more than 21,000 victims losing £17m between 2014 and 2017.

Image: Book Catalog