The expert warned against buying theater tickets from scammers

In the run-up to New Year's Eve, when people tend to have time to buy good seats for bright festive performances, ice shows and Christmas trees, it is especially easy to become a victim of fraudsters when buying tickets "with their hands". Denis Weinstein, Director of Ticket Business Development at MTS Live, told Izvestia on November 30 what to look for when buying tickets to performances, concerts, and exhibitions.

Today, according to the company's internal analytics, speculation occupies about 5% of the Russian and 10% of the Moscow ticket market. In monetary terms, this is about 2.5 billion rubles. More than 90% of tickets are currently sold in digital format, so one of the main channels of the speculative market is the twin sites. During the preparation period for the holidays, they are especially active: each Moscow theater has at least 2-3 fakes.

"If you look closely, it's not very difficult to distinguish them from the original: the design looks like the poster is identical, but the domain name may differ by one letter or have a strange ending. Such sites often lack full contact information, legal information, detailed posters and media sections, and they do not carry any cultural or educational meaning. Their goal is to sell the ticket quickly and conveniently," Weinstein explained.

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Another common scheme is the sale of counterfeit or resold e—tickets several times. Fraudsters can create a copy of the real ticket, but change the QR code, after which the buyer will only find out about the fake when trying to enter the event. It also happens that the same QR code is sent to several people, and buyers unwittingly become participants in the competition - only the one who presents the ticket first wins and goes to the concert.

It is also popular to use screenshots instead of real electronic tickets. People are sent an image with a supposedly valid code, but the real ticket has long since been sold or belongs to another person altogether. To combat this form of fraud, today some systems generate dynamic QR codes on tickets that are updated every few minutes or seconds. In this case, the barcode on the sold scan will be invalid.

Fraud cases involving tickets issued using the Pushkin Card are also becoming more frequent. It is important to understand here that any offers to withdraw funds, purchase and sell cards, as well as tickets paid for by them, are illegal.

"In order not to fall for tricks, it is important to remember the main principles. First, buy only on trusted services: ticket windows, directly from theaters and organizers, or in special applications. And don't rush to make the payment without verifying the authenticity of the ticket and the website. You should carefully look at the domain name of the site, check the page structure, the availability of contacts, banking details and complete information about the site and the event," the expert said.

You should be careful in social networks and messengers: do not follow suspicious links sent in messages, even if it is about acquaintances or groups dedicated to events.

Earlier, on November 24, the Russian Interior Ministry warned that fraudsters had begun actively using artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake photos of road accidents in order to illegally receive insurance payments. Insurers recommend that drivers take photos and videos from the scene from different angles, and be sure to capture the surrounding environment.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.