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Ticket scammers showing up online during Maha Festival

Posted at 10:46 PM, Aug 16, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-18 00:26:26-04

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The Maha Festival at Aksarben Village is sold out Saturday. Due to that, it's attracting some fake ticket sales.

"I posted on Facebook, I need a ticket for Saturday," said Nathan Schreiter who encountered a scammer. After his post, Schreiter got a message saying someone had tickets to sell. "I asked her for proof of purchase like the Eventbrite confirmation that came through after the ticket purchase, she sent a screen shot of that, it seemed legitimate," said Schreiter.

He then became suspicious after the payment through Paypal wasn't going through, and the person on FB then asked him to send a gift card. He canceled the transaction, but others who were posting on the Maha Festival FB page didn't seem to be so lucky, and said they were scammed by the same person.

"It's been happening for quite a while with concerts that sell out so you just have to be really careful once a scammer will see a concert sell out they tend to go on act like they have tickets when in fact they do not," said Rachel Grace, Marketing and Communcation Director for the Maha Festival. "There's really no way to identify whether or not a ticket is legitimate unless you're purchasing directly from the website."

Schreiter says he learned his lesson and hopes others are cautious to who they are sending money to. Maha recommends if you try to buy tickets for Saturday to do it from someone you know.