Fake That! More dodgy ticket sellers
Earlier this year we warned our users to be on the lookout for fake festival ticket sellers. Even though the festival season is over, that doesn’t mean that the scammers are sitting back until next year!
We were contacted by a reader this morning who told us
“My daughter has just bought 3 tickets for Take That from www.takethat-reunion.com. I am worried in case she is being scammed. or incase they are a site which uses your card details!!”
We checked out the site, and true to form it looks great! Excellent graphics, great photos and a very professional online shop. As usual though, there are several red flags that identify this site as VERY suspect:
1) The site does not list any contact details at all
2) The “whois” details are protected by a privacy service so it’s impossible to find out who you’re buying from (Yes, it’s our good friends at Dotster again offering a safe haven for scammers)
3) Although the “buy tickets” page is secured by SSL, this is through a budget seller offering security certificates for less than £10
4) The site has no privacy policy
The lack of a physical address or telephone number should be enough to put you off, but when combined with the obvious efforts to hide their identity by using whois privacy, the message is clear – AVOID AT ALL COSTS
Explanatory notes:
What’s the “Whois” database?
The whois database is where the contact details of every commercial domain name registrant (website owner) is stored and made publically available so that you as consumers are able to check that you’re dealing with a genuine organisation or business when you buy something online. It is also the standard test to establish the identity of the legal owner of a domain name in the event of a dispute over ownership.
What’s the difference between a “registrar” and a “registrant”?
The Registrar is the company providing domain name registration services (In this case, Dotser www.dotster.com)
The Registrant is the entity registering the domain name.
So how is Dotster helping the scammers?
Dotster use a loophole in the domain name registration rules to enable scammers to hide their contact details.
By offering a “Whois Privacy” service, which replaces the real registrant’s details with its own PO Box, email address and telephone number, Dotster allows the scammers to operate their website anonymously.
When you search the whois database for contact details for takethat-reunion.com, all you will see is Dotster’s address and telephone number and a “@privacypost.com” email address, however it is not made clear that these are not the registrant’s real details, so you would never know that they have chosen to hide their contact details from you.
Tags: Ticket Scams
Cleaning Contractor in Wrexham
This looks to be dodgy google ‘has anyone bought tickets from takethat-reunion.com yahoo is full of people buying then cancelling them. Its looking like the site is setup to collect details of cards, this info can then be sold onto the black market for id theft.
My fiance bought 10 and has now had to cancel her debit card. Id avoid the site and spread the word.
You can prove its fake by entering any name and address into the details then making up a credit card number eg 12345678910111213 then making the rest up. If it was a legit site it would recognise the number as a fake and stop you purchasing, however this site doesn’t and even sends a receipt for the amount.
Its sickening and an example of the world we live in.
Im feeling really sick – usually i check and double check before entering personal info – but my teenage kids were desperate to get the tickets and I just went along and booked them!!!
Ive cancelled my CC but am now so worried about ID theft, having been a victim once before
This site looks like it has already been taken down by Dotster.
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The site is still there today – as http://www.takethat-reunion.net (rather than .com)
BEWARE – DON’T BUY TICKETS – they ARE STILL SELLING TAKE THAT TICKETS for sold out gigs !!!!!!!!
Yes and tonight requesting authorisation to proceed with the money transfer for the tickets I ordered. They claim the tickets are 100% secured
Yeah i got that email too and then gave them the go ahead to charge me! luckily nothing has come out of my account and i cancelled my card. They can use my details all they want, good luck to them as my credit rating is terrible anyway! totally gutted about the tickets though as they where to be a gift for my girlfriend but i rang the “website” today to tell them what i think of them
Katy – I got sucked in too and I’m not the sort of person who would get caught either. I cancelled my card the next day but have recently received an email from them in response to mine – and it is now a .net where it was a .com previously. They’ve told me that they’ll be processing my payment in December – well they won’t so at least I’ve got that to comfort me – but no tickets so still gutted. Horrible people – I wish them only bad things.
Once the’ve been claimed they sell fake tickets – they should close the bussiness and open a new company i think…
I got an email today from Takethat-reunion.net stating that i had purchased tickects but they havent been able to charge my cc, after alot of worrying and digging on the day they went on sale i decided to cancel my card due to sites like this telling me this site was fake.
The email i got today said i had to email them with my cc details and they will charge me for the 4 tickets i purchased, I DONT THINK SO!!
The IP address belongs to someone in another country, i thought it was too easy to get the tickets when my sister and cousin couldn’t get through the whole day. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!
The website has changed from .com to .net
I received an email from them today, telling me to email them if i did or didn’t want the tickets, as no money had been taken from my account, i too cancelled my credit card immediately, they’ve certainly got balls to recontact people when we all know they’re fake, their new website .net not .com is still showing tickets for sale what an absolute joke hopefully no one will fall into the trap of trying to get tickets from them, i did the same as many others, thought it was too good to be true that i’d been able to get onto a ticket sellers website let alone buy tickets, but felt strange after and started doing checks!!!!
you do realize buying/selling tickets can be damaging to ones reputatation? Hiding your contact info is is smart and does not necessarily mean its a scam.
Dotster is not helping scammers… they are help the thousands of legit websites out there who choose to not have their contact information known to the entire world.
We bought 4 tickets in 2 transactions on Oct 29th.2 days ago we recieved an email saying payment hadnt been taken due to the high call volume and they would like to do so.On the email they provide a landline number which infacts ring out saying “this mobile number is unavailable”After hours of trying i spoke to a Ethnic sounding male who was very aggresive and very defensive.I advised him the call was recorded and after lots of investigating throughout the day we have contacted the local police and will be informing trading standards.LETS STOP THESE CRIMINALS!!!!