Tips to avoid sports and holiday event ticket scams during busy winter season

DENVER (KDVR) — Consumers lost more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission .

The holiday season is expected to be a busy one for scammers looking to target fans buying digital tickets to sporting events and holiday concerts.

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"I normally just look it up online like Google or something and see what pops up first," one sports fan told FOX31.

Colorado Public Interest Research Group Executive Director Danny Katz told the Problem Solvers it's important to begin your search at your event's original website.

"Be careful if you just type in (for example) Avalanche tickets because there could be a lot of websites that come up some of which are scam websites," he said.

Many scam websites will use similar words featured on a legitimate website so examine the page for a correct web address. A red flag is misspelled words or the use of inappropriate grammar. COPIRG identified email scams as one of the most aggressive this season.

"(Emails) say that your tickets have actually been given to somebody else or that they need your password. They need some verification code and they trick you into giving some personal information away," said Katz.

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Another tactic is to pressure or scare fans.

"They can send you something and they can say, 'Danny your ticket to the show is about to expire if you don't log in and give us this information,' and then you log in, give them your password to your Ticketmaster account, and lo and behold they can get your ticket or maybe even get your credit card information," said Katz.

COPIRG advises fans to make purchases with credit cards, which offer more protection than instant payment apps or bank transfer tools.

Ticketmaster has invested heavily in new scam-tracking technology. The company told FOX31 that digital purchases allow their investigators to uncover fraud and restore tickets to fans.

"Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicated PDFs," Ticketmaster told the Problem Solvers. "Having that digital history is also how we are able to investigate the situation and restore just about all fans' tickets.

"The top way fans can protect themselves is setting a strong unique password for all accounts – especially for their personal email which is where we often see security issues originate. Scammers are looking for new cheats across every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable, so Ticketmaster is constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans."

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Fraud in Colorado can be reported to the Colorado Attorney General's Office at stopfraudcolorado.gov .