Football fans warned over Premier League ticket scams

Lloyds Bank says thousands of young people in the UK have been tricked into paying for non-existent Premier League football tickets in the past. says football ticket fraud against its customers has increased by almost a third compared to last time and has warned punters to be careful. According to Banking Industry Group UK Finance, tickets sold out quickly and criminals could take advantage of those looking for deals. urged social media companies to do more to stop the scam and urged customers to be careful. Lloyds Bank estimates that out of around 6,000 British football fans have fallen victim to fraud in the past. It analyzed its own fraud data and developed a fraud strategy for all its bank customers based on Lloyd's market share - it holds around a fifth of UK accounts. This means that at least 1,200 Lloyd's customers have been defrauded in recent times. More than half of those affected are between the ages of 18 and 34. His clients lost an average of 177 pounds, but some lost more than 1,000 pounds. criminals tend to target fans of big clubs, with Arsenal and Liverpool fans being the most common. About 56% of fraud comes from Facebook Marketplace and another 26% from X (formerly Twitter). Last year, Lloyds Bank estimated that Taylor Swift fans lost more than £1 million to ticket theft ahead of her UK tour.

How did the scams work?

Criminals create fake posts on social media or online markets to promote non-existent tickets, often using photos of real tickets to convince customers that they are genuine. The victim is tricked into making a payment, usually to a bank wire transfer. After the money is transferred, the scam disappears and the victim gets nothing. The problem is that bank transfers are not designed for online transactions, so it's difficult to get your money back once it's gone. Bank can compensate the injured, but the transaction does not have the same protection as, for example, when buying with a bank card.

What can fans do?

Liz Ziegler, head of anti-fraud at Lloyds Bank, said "missing a big game after ticket fraud can be devastating". 

 advises fans to stick to official ticket channels and avoid offers that seem too good to be true. According to Finance UK, fans should stop and think before parting with the money. 

 This means that it is best to reject applications and scammers will try to rush or scare you into making a decision. 

 Premier League advises to buy tickets directly from the club or official partners. A spokesman for the banking sector said customers lost almost £86m last year to so-called "sales fraud", with nine out of ten fraudsters started online. 

 "Tek and social media companies will raise the crime on their sites and share the costs of the victims," said the spokesperson. The Facebook owner of Meta and X said.