How to Make Sure Your Tickets Are Real (and Avoid Getting Scammed Online)

Buying tickets online should be the easy part of going to a match or a show. Too often it's where things go wrong. Sold-out fixtures, last-minute trips, and a flood of "I've got spare tickets" posts on social media create the perfect conditions for scammers, and the tickets you're paying for don't always exist.

The good news: almost every ticket scam follows one of a handful of predictable patterns. Once you know what they look like, they're easy to avoid. Below we walk through how the scams actually work, how to verify a ticket is genuine before you pay, and what to do if you've already been caught out.

How ticket scams actually work

Scammers don't need to be clever. They rely on urgency and on buyers paying before they can verify anything. These are the patterns that come up again and again:

The "spare ticket" DM. Someone replies to a post, or slides into your DMs, offering tickets to a sold-out event at a fair price. The account looks normal. The story is believable ("can't make it anymore, just want to cover my costs"). The tickets never arrive, or arrive already used.

Payment outside any protected channel. This is the single biggest red flag. The seller insists on a bank transfer, PayPal Friends & Family, a Tikkie, gift cards, or crypto. Anything where you can't claw the money back. Legitimate marketplaces never need this.

The recycled screenshot or PDF. They send a photo or PDF of a "real" ticket. It may well be real, but the same screenshot has been sold to five other people. Whoever scans in first gets the seat; everyone else is turned away at the gate.

Prices that are too good for a sold-out event. If a match has been gone for weeks and someone's offering face value, ask why. Genuine resale for high-demand fixtures almost never sits below market.

Manufactured urgency. "Two other people are interested," "I need to confirm in 10 minutes." The pressure exists to stop you checking. A real seller can wait while you verify.

How to make sure a ticket is real before you pay

Run through this checklist before any money moves:

1. Buy through official or verified resale. Club box offices, the official primary seller, and reputable resale platforms with a buyer guarantee are the safe baseline. If a ticket lives entirely inside a private chat, you have no protection.
2. Check how the ticket is delivered. Modern tickets are increasingly mobile transfers tied to your account or a secure barcode that refreshes. A static PDF or a screenshot is the easiest thing in the world to duplicate. Treat it with suspicion.
3. Never pay by an irreversible method. No bank transfers, no Friends & Family, no gift cards, no crypto to a stranger. If your only protection is the seller's good word, you have no protection.
4. Verify the seller, not just the ticket. A brand-new account, no history, stock photos, or a profile created days ago are all warning signs. Real resellers have a footprint.
5. Confirm the details match the event. Section, row, seat, date, and the name on the ticket. For many fixtures, tickets are tied to the buyer's identity and aren't transferable at all. Selling them on is against the club's rules and the ticket can be voided at the gate.
6. Don't let urgency rush you. Anyone unwilling to give you time to check is telling you something.

In both of these, notice the same fingerprints: contact through social media, pressure to pay fast, and a payment method with no way back. Different stories, identical mechanics.

What to do if you've already been scammed

1. Stop contact and screenshot everything: the listing, the messages, the payment, the account.
2. Report it to your bank or payment provider immediately. Some payments can be reversed if you move fast; Friends & Family and bank transfers usually can't, which is exactly why scammers ask for them.
3. Report the account to the platform it happened on, and to your national fraud body. In the Netherlands that's the police via politie.nl and the Fraudehelpdesk; in the UK, Action Fraud.
4. Warn others without naming and shaming an individual. Describe the method, not the person.

You probably won't get the money back, but reporting helps the platform shut the account down before it catches someone else.

The safer way to buy

The reason ticket scams thrive on social media is simple: there's no one standing behind the transaction. That's the whole problem TicketSeal is built to solve. Every listing comes from a verified source, prices are compared in real time so you're not guessing what's fair, and your purchase is protected. None of the "trust me and send a bank transfer" dynamic that scams depend on.