CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — As the world returns to pre-pandemic life, live events are coming back and that has turned into a target-rich environment for scam artists.
Steve Bernas, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, told WBBM Newsradio scammers are taking advantage of people by offering either fake tickets or in some cases fake events.
He said two recent scams involve a taco festival and a beer festival that turned out to be bogus.
“And there’s no event at all and then they say there’s no refund,” Bernas told WBBM Newsradio.
Bernas said the imaginary events are promoted on social media.
“It’s truly making it worse because everybody is reposting those and forwarding to their friends. And guess what, It’s really easy then. The scammer doesn’t have to do any work. Everybody’s doing all of the work for them,” he continued.
Bernas said if you do come across a fake ticket or event scam report it to the Better Business Bureau's scam tracker at BBB.org/scamtracker.
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