With the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris just months away, the scam attempts are commensurate with the scale of the sporting event. Apart from the numerous digital risks linked to the hacking of computer infrastructures, a much more banal danger threatens potential spectators: the fake ticket scam, while the various phases of official ticket sales began a few weeks ago.
In total, some 200 gendarmes are mobilized for this task, in collaboration with other European services, within the framework of the Europol Impact Sport Event programme. Since the beginning of March, cyber patrol agents have detected 44 illegal ticket resale sites, Marc Boget, head of the gendarmerie’s cybersecurity unit, told BFMTV.
Fake tickets go on sale before real ones
“In the last detected site we have first sales of tickets that are not officially for sale, for a requested amount that is between three and four times higher than that of real tickets,” he adds.
According to the findings of the gendarmerie, two types of scams are multiplying online. Some sites offer tickets they don’t have for sale, enticing the victim to pay for sesame she will never receive.
Other sites offer real tickets for sale, at much higher prices than those charged by the official box office. It is still very difficult for Internet users to differentiate between these two practices, with the impossibility of ensuring that they will actually be able to access the event on D-Day. In total, some 13 million tickets were sold through the official site.
Source: BFM TV
