The beautiful game turns ugly as scammers target young football fans

Football fans were deed hardest, with implicit fractional of the losses amounting to £127,544, portion motorsport enthusiasts faced the biggest mean nonaccomplishment astatine £3,851 per scam. Golf fans weren't spared either, typically losing £860

Some £243,000 has been conned retired of sports fans successful summons scams from January to September this year, Santander's information reveals.

A important amount, £80,491, was taken from 19 to 34-year olds, who correspond a 3rd of the full losses and a 84% of each cases by volume. Criminals whitethorn nonstop fake tickets tickets, oregon merchantability seats that simply don't exist, often utilizing societal media oregon fake websites to hook their victims, the slope warns.

Football fans were deed hardest, with implicit fractional of the losses amounting to £127,544, portion motorsport enthusiasts faced the biggest mean nonaccomplishment astatine £3,851 per scam. Golf fans weren't spared either, typically losing £860.

The mean nonaccomplishment per sports summons scam has risen to £352 this year, up from £225 successful 2023, according to Santander. Chris Ainsley, caput of fraud hazard absorption astatine Santander said: "Scammers cognize however to exploit the excitement astir large games. Don’t fto them people astatine your expense. A speedy cheque could beryllium the quality betwixt cheering successful the stands oregon being near connected the bench, retired of pouch and retired of luck."

Here are immoderate tips from Santander to debar summons scams:

1. Buy tickets from trustworthy authoritative sellers and websites.

2. If tickets are sold out, bash not let the excitement of the infinitesimal to propulsion you into buying from a non-legitimate source.

3. Avoid paying by slope transportation oregon PayPal friends and household if you are buying a resale summons from idiosyncratic different than authoritative sellers oregon websites.

4. Make definite the website you are buying from is secure. When buying online, cheque the outgo pages by looking for the padlock awesome successful the code bar. The website should commencement with “https”.

5. Fraudsters whitethorn connection tickets to fashionable events that person sold retired oregon inquire for a little terms than expected. Do not hide that if thing seems excessively bully to beryllium true, it astir apt is.