Suffolk Trading Standards has said it is expecting to see “a huge number of ticket scams” as Ed Sheeran plays the Portman Road stadium in Ipswich in July. It follows a BBC investigation that found scammers advertising tickets for the shows on social media, priced at up to £190 each, shortly after they went on pre-sale earlier this week.
Sasha Watson from Suffolk Trading Standards told the BBC that “straight after the pre-sale tickets went on sale we saw people attempting to sell ‘extra’ tickets or tickets they can no longer use, but these are fraudulent”. She added that demand is high for the three homecoming shows in Ipswich, which is near where Sheeran grew up, meaning “people are very passionate about getting these tickets” and “are often blinded by that". But she urged fans to never buy tickets from social media.
This follows a recent warning from Lloyds Banking Group that millions are being lost to online ticket scams, in which people advertise non-existent tickets for in-demand shows via online forums and social media groups. The scammers usually request payment by bank transfer.
Based on fraud claims made to the bank, Lloyds estimated that scammers had made £2 million selling non-existent tickets to the Oasis reunion shows alone.
Tickets for the Sheeran shows went on pre-sale earlier this week, first for his mailing list, and then for season ticket holders of Ipswich Town Football Club, whose stadium is hosting the concerts.
The BBC says that, within an hour of tickets going on sale, it found at least seven social media profiles advertising tickets they said they had been bought but were no longer needed. The tickets were priced from £95 to £190.
A BBC reporter contacted the sellers using a pseudonym and asked to see proof of the tickets being sold. The different sellers all sent back the same screenshot of the same purchase confirmation email.
When the BBC challenged one seller as to why multiple people were providing the same proof of purchase, they claimed that they had sent the screenshot to other interested buyers, and one of them must have been a scammer now using the screenshot in a bid to sell fake tickets.
The sellers also said that, as soon as they received payment to their bank account, they would use Ticketmaster’s ticket transfer tool to transfer the ticket to the buyer. But that tool is not currently available for Sheeran’s shows. Terms and conditions for the concerts explain that the transfer tool “will be turned on a few weeks after the initial sale, once we’re happy the tickets have been purchased by actual fans”.
Sheeran and his team have worked hard over the years to ensure fans don’t get ripped off when buying tickets to his shows. That has included being particularly proactive in trying to stop the resale of his tickets at big mark ups on the secondary ticketing platforms, by insisting that touted tickets will be cancelled, and urging fans to only ever buy from official primary sellers.
There is slightly less Sheeran and his team can do to tackle outright fraudsters selling non-existent tickets, except monitoring social media and urging the platforms to take action, while trying to communicate to fans that they should only ever buy from approved channels.
A spokesperson for promoters Kilimanjaro Live and Communion One reiterated that point when speaking to the BBC.
“There are many scammers, some even using bots, who may be attempting to encourage people to part with their money for tickets that may not even exist”, they added, before explaining, “we have a requirement for all members of a party to enter with the lead booker who must provide proof of identity".
Meanwhile a Ticketmaster spokesperson said, “We would always recommend fans only ever buy tickets from official sources and avoid buying from individuals on social media to protect themselves from ticketing scams”.