Third-party ticket scam at Capitol Theatre concert claims more than 50 victims
Fans of South Korean band Wave To Earth were left shocked and disappointed when they attended the band’s sold-out concert at the Capitol Theatre on Monday (4 March) and found out at the door that their tickets were invalid.
They had reportedly purchased tickets to the show from third-party platforms. While some fans realised that they had fallen prey to a scam early on, about 50 fans reportedly only found out about it when they reached the concert venue.
The victims banded together and found that their tickets all belonged to the same person, who had sold her tickets to the alleged scammer.
MS News understands several police reports have been made about this matter. This comes in the wake of a slew of recent scams involving tickets to concerts by international celebrities.
Fans of korean band found out about ticket scam on the day of the concert
Among the people this impacted was 30-year-old PR consultant Chong Yoke Ming, who in turn alerted MS News.
Source: @wave_to_earth on Instagram
“I only realised I was scammed on the day of the concert itself. When I scanned my tickets to enter, they were invalid and marked as ‘used’,” he recounted.
The revelation took Chong by surprise. When he asked around, he found out that he was not the only one.
Other fans who had, like him, purchased tickets from third-party online platforms such as Carousell and Telegram, were facing the same problem.
He had paid S$200 for two Cat 1 tickets from a seller on Telegram.
Originally, the tickets cost S$120 for Cat 2, S$140 for Cat 1, and S$270 for the VIP package inclusive of a Cat 1 ticket.
Source: TicketMelon
“By the end of the day, over 50 of us gathered in the same Telegram group chat to share each other’s experiences.”
Apparently, there were also some fans who realised they had fallen prey to the scam in December 2023 and January 2024, shortly after purchasing the tickets. Public sales of the tickets opened on 7 Dec 2023.
Tickets bore the name of the same person, who had sold their tickets to alleged scammer
According to Chong, victims of the scam quickly came to the realisation that their tickets bear the name of the same person.
The original owner of the tickets, who wishes to go by ‘A’, claimed that a man with the surname Ng approached her through Carousell on 11 Dec to purchase her pair of Cat 1 tickets to the concert.
A received payment for the tickets via two separate PayNow fund transfers from Ng on 11 Dec – S$50 at 3pm and the remaining S$450 at 3.21pm.
Image courtesy of Chong Yoke Ming.
Ng then reportedly asked A for further “proof of authenticity”, such as the QR code, email confirmation, and PDF files of the tickets.
A obliged and sent Ng the files as she “thought nothing of it”.
Subsequently, on 5 Jan 2024, A received a message on her personal Instagram page telling her about the alleged scam with tickets bearing her name. She later joined the Telegram group chat with about 20 members, all holding tickets that supposedly belonged to A.
A said that she feels “violated and distressed”, knowing that her name was used to distribute fake tickets, scamming fans out of “hundreds of dollars”.
MS News understands that A has lodged a police report about this incident.
Alleged scammer may have been involved with other scams, police investigating
Another victim, who wishes to go by ‘B’, had gotten hold of Ng’s contact number when B got in touch with him to purchase concert tickets to the same show.
The PayNow account she transferred funds to had Ng’s name, she claimed.
B added that she has reported the PayNow account to the bank. She also claimed the bank has suspended the account in question.
On top of that, B found a TikTok account linked to Ng’s contact number via the app’s recommendations.
Image courtesy of Chong Yoke Ming.
Apparently, there is also an Instagram and Threads account, as well as a Xiaohongshu account with a similar username.
Image courtesy of Chong Yoke Ming.
Both of the accounts have the display name “小明 (xiao ming)”, which is reportedly the same as the WhatsApp display name of Ng, the person who had initially bought the tickets from A, based on screenshots MS News has seen.
Victims in the Telegram group chat later learnt that a local Instagram account, which alerts followers of potential scammers, had in 2020 warned about a man with the same full name as Ng for alleged scams involving the sale of sneaker sales.
Image courtesy of Chong Yoke Ming.
MS News learnt that at least two other police reports have been made regarding the alleged ticket scam.
Per a separate report by Shin Min Daily News, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) have confirmed receipt of police reports and are looking into this case.
MS News reached out to SPF but it did not wish to comment. MS News has also contacted the concert organisers for more information.
Comes amid a slew of other concert ticket scams in Singapore
This incident follows a string of similar concert ticket scams in Singapore.
Most recently, a pair of Taylor Swift fans realised that their tickets to one of the star’s shows in Singapore were fake after making payment to a third-party seller.
Taylor Swift fans get resale tickets 20 mins into S’pore show after learning they were scammed
Eventually, they were fortunate enough to get their hands on genuine tickets on the day of the concert.
Another incident saw a Malaysian engineer losing S$3,300 to a Taylor Swift ticket scam on Carousell.
In fact, these scams are so prevalent that the online marketplace suspended the sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s Singapore concerts until after her final show to deter these fraudsters.
Carousell suspends sale of Taylor Swift tickets till 9 Mar & will take action against scammers
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Featured image adapted from @wave_to_earth on Instagram and Wikimedia Commons.
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