This week’s modus operandi spotlight urges the public to be wary of online scalpers.

Scene of the crime: Online event ticket sales

Plan of attack: Scalping is done by online brokers who use specific software to sweep tens of thousands of tickets within minutes and automatically repost them on their website, at an at least 500% markup price. No human involvement, just software. Most of these ticket brokers have their businesses registered at PO boxes. They use software that collects personal information, credit card numbers, addresses, etc in only a few seconds. That’s including using bots reading the captchas for the human verification pass, too! This way, while you are taking at least three minutes to fill out the submission form on an official ticket selling website, this scrapping software beats you by far and leaves an event sold out very quickly.

How to protect yourself: Buy your tickets directly from the venue or from a reputable site which specializes in ticket sales and has better fraud prevention for customers and use common sense. If the person selling the item you’re interested in can’t meet with you or won’t let you inspect the item before you purchase, that’s a red flag.

Source: Ace And Associates Risk Management, Inc.