How One Scammer Managed To Scam More Than 20 Malaysians With Just Two LANY Concert Tickets
Many waited in line for hours only to find out that their tickets were invalid upon entry.
By Justin Tan — 04 Apr 2018, 06:02 PM
Los Angeles-based pop trio LANY thrilled a sold-out crowd at KL Live on Saturday, 31 March. It was their first headline concert in Malaysia.
This is LANY's second performance here in Malaysia after their successful debut at Good Vibes Festival last year.
However, it was not as smooth sailing as concert-goers had hoped to be. The gig was delayed for almost two hours due to "unusually high ticket fraud activity".
According to Xtra, the concert was scheduled to start at 8.00pm but it ended up starting at around 10.00pm.
As a result, many concert-goers had to miss our local talent, Midnight Fusic, perform the opening act because of the extremely long entry line.
Fortunately, LANY waited for everyone to enter the venue before starting the show.
One person vented his frustration on Twitter after he was turned away at the gate because the tickets he bought online was already used by others for entry
Putera Iddin claimed that more than 20 people bought the same exact ticket with the same barcode. He also shared the alleged scammer's Instagram page and asked if anyone knows the fraudster.
At one point, his tweet garnered almost 1,000 retweets and many replied to his tweet claiming they fell prey to the same scammer too.
When contacted, Putera told SAYS that a police report has been lodged and the victims of the scam including himself formed WhatsApp groups to collect further information about the scammer
Putera said, "My girlfriend bought the two passes for RM125 each and she was convinced that it was legit because the fraudster forwarded the official email with the tickets."
"When I found out that my tickets have been used by another person, my girlfriend's friend told her that were another eight people who faced the same problem at that time. I believe that she managed to scam 20 to 30 people in total."
When asked about the Whatsapp group, he told SAYS, "We discussed about how we got scammed and most of us were cheated in the same way. However, some actually met up with the fraudster to collect their tickets.
"Collectively, we shared her personal information among ourselves and made a police report at the same time."
Future Sound Asia, which organised the concert, posted a statement on their social media pages to apologise to the concert-goers for the delay and reminded the public to only buy tickets from authorised ticket providers
"We would again like to strongly advise fans to only buy tickets from our authorised ticket providers," the statement which was posted on Facebook reads.
While the organisers did not reveal the actual numbers, several people claimed they were told by officials that around 400 to 500 people were denied entry due to ticket fraud that night
With the scammer's information being shared online and police reports filed against her, Putera confirmed that the fraudster agreed to refund the money back to everyone that was affected and requested for his tweet to be taken down
Putera's initial tweet has since been deleted and some netizens have confirmed that they have received their money back from the scammer.
However, the damage has been done already. Some people like Putera chose to go home with disappointment after waiting for hours, while others were forced to scramble to find ticket sellers at the venue at the eleventh hour.
Have you or anyone you know fallen victim to concert ticket scams before? Share your experience with us in the comments section below.