Here is a caution for all food aficionados. If you have an appetite for good food, even the scammers do. In fact, scammers across the world are preying on your appetites. A recent report states that some scammers are advertising fake food festivals on sites like Facebook and Groupon as well as in local radio stations and print media.
All such advertisements seem to be genuine and the ticket prices are tempting. Recently an invitation to a food festival on Facebook promoted $49 tickets for "all-you-can-eat crab, salad, pasta, bread, and desserts" at a recent "Hot Garlic Crab Feed Houston." The ad also touted $99 for VIP tickets offering an additional helping of steak. Aficionados of food festival clicked on the link to purchase tickets and also fed their credit card numbers.
However, when they turned up at the food festival "venue," there was nothing: no event, no festival, and no explanation. The only indication of the supposed "food festival" was a confused crowd of food connoisseurs who had been tricked to cough up their money in a similar manner, Consumer Reports said.
According to the report, several such fake advertisements including "Hot Garlic Crab Feed,"The Super Crab Festival," and "The Dungeness Crab Association" and similarly dubious events came out in 21 cities across the United States during the last three months alone. The fake festivals, which began in the San Francisco Bay Area, gradually moved down south to Los Angeles, extended to Phoenix and Houston, and are currently being touted in Charlotte, North Carolina and Philadelphia.
The scam is not just restricted to food festivals, but also flower exhibitions. Recently, the Dundee City Council was targeted by international fraudsters who wanted the council to include a fake flower and food festival in their list of events. The council received a letter from a company calling itself the International Fairs Directory, asking for it to confirm details about the annual Camperdown Park festival for inclusion in a listings directory.
While the letter did not ask for any money, the small print said signing and returning the form commits to paying €1212 (just below £1,000) a year for the next three years. The letter, what is known as a directory scam, a swindle that is believed to have its origin in Central or South America, The Courier UK reported.
It is always possible to battle fraudulent charges with your bank or credit card company's help, it is best to avoid them. Below are a few guidelines that will help you protect yourself from such fraudsters.
Scrutinize the ticketing website to find if it looks professional or messy. If it is slapdash, you will notice some of the words on the Web URL are truncated and along with plenty of grammatical errors throughout the linked pages.
Suspect the redirect. When you click on a link for a food festival, be guarded if you are redirected to an unrelated site to "buy" tickets.
Verify the contact information. In the case of a phony festival, the telephone number would not work. Even the email address would bounce your inquiry back.
Since fraudsters are always looking for new methods to trick you, remain alert and do some research before handing over your credit card number.
