Fans warn of fake tickets ahead of festival season

Kent and Surrey police forces announced they were backing a ticket-fraud awareness campaign

Music fans from south-east England have spoken about their experiences with fake ticket scams after police launched an awareness-raising campaign.

Kent and Surrey police forces announced they were backing a ticket-fraud awareness campaign led by Action Fraud ahead of festival season.

Lucy Allen, from Crawley, goes to many concerts and said she was wary of "dodgy websites" with little information on events.

Nationally people lost £6.7 million to ticket fraud last year, according to figures from Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber-crime reporting service.

'Hugely inflated prices'

Steve Teague, the director of Weyfest Music Festival in Tilford, Surrey regularly hides posts from people claiming to sell tickets for the annual event.

Mr Teague says people are offering tickets "all the time" on social media and advises fans to only buy from reputable vendors.

Keith Garrow, general manager of event space Dorking Hall, said there was also an issue of people buying up tickets for popular shows and "selling them at hugely inflated prices when the show is sold out".

He advised people to buy tickets through reputable websites and join waiting lists if an event is sold out.

Pauline Smith, the head of Action Fraud, said: "We all want to enjoy ticketed events this summer, but that doesn’t stop fraudsters from taking the fun out of things we look forward to doing."

Ms Smith advised people to be wary of unsolicited messages "offering deals too good to be true".

Action Fraud added people should also avoid paying for tickets by bank transfer.