Look-Alike Websites And/Or Stealing Your Event Ticket Sales – It’s Happening And How To Fix It

At the time of writing this, one of our globally known clients just resolved an issue where someone created a “look-alike” website and domain and was using this site to sell fake tickets and steal credit card information. This client has the luxury of a legal team to jump all over this and shut it down quickly.

Whether you have a lawyer on the ready or not, here’s some tips on how to shut such situations down quickly and to help curb such situations in the future. 

 

Look-Alike Websites – WTF? 

Sadly, this is a much bigger thing now thanks to AI website builders. We don’t want to make AI the boogeyman here, spoofing websites has been a thing for a long time but AI builders are making the job possible in half-a-day compared to much more laborious process in the past. 

For about $50 (domain + hosting) someone can take a reputable brand, get a similar domain name and setup shop to scam your unsuspecting customers. 

 

How Do I Find These Sites?

Diligence, customers and by getting ahead of it (more below). 

Stay diligent with your website presence online. Use search regularly to search your own business or event. For these scammers to be successful they need to use your same keywords and verbiage on their fake site(s). Keep an eye out on social channels and look to user-generated content community sites like Reddit for any suspicious activity bearing your name. 

One of the most unfortunate ways to find about such look-alike website issues is from your own fans and customers – unfortunate because they have probably been scammed by this point. Be quick to investigate and reply to any notices you receive via phone, e-mail or website contact form. If you host and event or a ticketed based business, act quickly when customers show up with fake tickets or complain about purchasing tickets online that you have no record of. Try to get the following information: 

• Website link/url they visited
• The source of how they reached the site (social post, search engine result, e-mail)
• When they used the look-alike website

The more information you can  gather, the faster your web team and legal team can hunt the source of the issue and act.  

 

What To Do When You Find Look-Alike Websites

As mentioned, our client had a legal at the ready. Whether you have the same resources or not, here’s some “shut it down” tactics:

1. Whois The Domain Name

   Whois is the global domain registry record and can show you where a domain was purchased. While the domain may have been “privately” registered, you can still see the registering company. Most domain registrars have a “report abuse” contact form and can assist you from there. 

2. Find The Hosting Provider

   You can use tools like HostingChecker.com or whoishostingthis.com to help pinpoint the hosting company and then do the same thing – get connected to their abuse reporting options and proceed from there. 

3. Find The Payment Processor

   If the look-alike is trying to sell fake tickets, go the the checkout screen and see if you notice any logos or marks for a payment processor (ex- Stripe, PayPal) or is the browser “view source” option to see if you see any recognizable processor code. This may be harder to detect as they may be making the processor or not actually using a processor but a simple website form designed to look like a payment form and is simply collecting unencrypted credit card info. If they are using a processor you recognize, reach out to the abuse channels. 

 

Getting Ahead Of This – Ways To Keep Your Brand (and Customers) Safe. 

Here are some ideas to help you curb look-alike website and ticket sale scams: 

Notice On Your Website

The easiest and best thing you can do is add a notice section on your website about fake ticket resellers. You can make this a pop-up or static notice section. Include:

• Name who your official ticket partner is
• Make people aware of possible scams ticket sites
• Outline your policy on non-acceptance of fake tickets

Create A Report Abuse Form On Your Website

Your customers can be your best eyes and ears. Create a simple form on your website that allows people to report possible scam situations. 

 
E-mail Newsletter

A great way to create awareness among your loyal customers is through your own e-mail newsletter. You don’t need to create panic with a dedicated message but including a section in your newsletter(s) informing your customers of potential fake sites/ticket sellers, highlighting your official ticket portal and providing a link to a “report abuse” form on your own website can be very helpful. 

Social Media

If you’re using social media to promote your business/event, not only include an occasional message about official ticket avenues but leverage your social media personalities too. A post like “Hi, I’m Jane Doe, the official social media personality for X. If you ever see a post about us and it’s not me in the video, its fake!” Not the best script, but you get it. 

Include The Name/Logo Of Your Ticketing Partner In Your Ads

Someplace on your advertising, include a mention about who you use for official tickets. This can be a simple as “official tickets sold by Eventbrite” above the Eventbrite logo. 

 

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this situation does not happen to you/your business but if it does, you now have some paths to remediate the issue. Reach out to your legal team first, let your web team know as well and lastly create awareness on your own channels to mitigate further customer service issues.