3,000 Belgians fight back against ticket fraud

Test-Achats is leading a battle against unscrupulous ticket resale websites that offer concert tickets at excessively high prices. The Belgian consumer protection organisation rounded up 3,000 people who were duped when purchasing concert tickets for Adele and K3, and is now filing a collective lawsuit to force the fraudulous sites to issue refunds, writes Het Nieuwsblad.

The official Tele Ticket Service earlier this year was tipped to the practices of malicious websites selling overpriced tickets for popular concerts such as Adele and K3. The sites purchase mass amounts of the tickets, only to sell them again online for a much higher price.

Unsuspecting visitors to the sites then bought the exorbitant tickets and only found out later that they were the victims of illegal ticket resale, a criminal offense in Belgium. The Economic Inspectorate intervened and blocked a number of websites. Some of these posed as individuals, thereby committing identity fraud, as well.