A scam victim wrote to Mothership to tell her tale:

I lost S$750 to a Taylor Swift concert ticket scam on Sep. 24, 2023.

While the amount of money I have lost is not much compared to other scam victims who have lost thousands and even millions, I hope my story serves as a cautionary tale to others who wish to buy tickets and items from unlicensed sellers.

I wish to share my story anonymously.

Wanted to buy the tickets on a whim

I didn't think about going to the Taylor Swift concert.

One day, I came across someone reselling the tickets on a Telegram channel named "NTU Marketplace".

I don't earn much, so when the seller, 'A',  said the prices of the tickets were negotiable, I was tempted to buy the tickets to go with my friend.

Reasonable price

I messaged 'A' privately to ask him which category his tickets were.

After he replied that the tickets were from Cat 1, I googled and found out that they were originally listed at S$348 each.

I offered S$360 for each ticket, and he negotiated for S$375 instead.

I thought the price seemed reasonable as I had heard that scalpers would sell Taylor Swift tickets for exorbitant amounts, and a mere S$27 markup is understandable.

However, before transferring the money, I had a nagging feeling it might be a scam.

Seller provided his IC

So, I made sure to take some precautions to avoid being scammed.

At least, I thought they were enough.

I asked 'A' to give me a copy of his IC, thinking that if this was a scam, I could easily report him to the police.

He seemed hesitant at first, which I thought was understandable.

To convince him to do so, I lied to him and said I had been scammed before, thus "explaining" my suspicious nature.

In the end, he provided me with a photo of an IC.

Convinced by this, I sent him the S$750 for two tickets via PayLah.

As tickets purchased via Ticketmaster are only sent out one to two weeks before the concert, he sent me a screenshot of the order receipt instead.

IC belongs to a convicted rapist

After transferring the money, I couldn't help but feel something was off.

I decided to google the name on the IC.

A news article about a rape case showed up — the name in the IC belongs to a convicted rapist.

I could only console myself that it was a "weird coincidence".

Seller with similar name selling tickets with another account

The next day, I saw someone selling tickets for Halloween Horror Nights on the same Telegram group.

The person selling the tickets was using the name 'AT', and clicking into his account, I found that his Telegram handle was another variation of 'Alson'.

This immediately triggered my alarm bells, as I realised he had been using multiple accounts to sell different kinds of tickets, which was suspicious.

I asked my friend to text him, feigning interest in the tickets.

At first, he replied swiftly, but when my friend asked if he was the same person who sold the Taylor Swift tickets, he quickly deleted his account.

My friend also forwarded the listing to another group chat, asking if anyone had bought tickets from him before.

Our hearts sank when someone said the same 'Alson' had scammed them.

Tried to get the money back

I tried to get my money back.

As 'A' had not blocked me, I hoped he had not realised that I knew he was a scammer.

I came up with a story to try to convince him that I desperately needed the money back.

While his replies were instant when I bought the tickets from him, I had to wait almost a full day for him to acknowledge my plea.

Worse, he replied that he had already used up the money.

I tried to reason with him and asked if he could return the money next week instead or anytime when he could, but he left me on read.

I filed a police report soon after.

It has been nearly a month since then, and I haven't received any updates about the investigation.

At this point, I don't expect to get my money back.

I also don't know if the person who scammed me is the same man in the IC.

I hope my story serves as a cautionary tale to others to be wary of such scams.

But it would be great if I could get my money back.

Top photo via story submitter