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Crime

Lady Gaga Tickets Are Ga-Gone; Offer on Craigslist Is a Con

Feb 18, 2011 – 10:07 AM
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Mara Gay

Mara Gay Contributor

Lady Gaga fans looking for last-minute tickets to her New York City show, beware: A con artist is asking for hundreds of dollars on Craigslist in exchange for seats unsuspecting buyers will never see.

WNBC-TV reports that the scam offers to sell discounted tickets for the Lady Gaga concerts Monday and Tuesday in New York City's Madison Square Garden through a "verified eBay payment agent." Buyers are asked to wire money to London through sites that appear to be legitimate but are actually set up by scam artists.
Singer Lady Gaga
Kevin Winter, Getty Images
Scam artists are offering to sell discounted tickets for Lady Gaga's concerts next week in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

The concert is sold out, and the fake eBay invoices demand hundreds of dollars for tickets that don't exist, NBC said.

Lady Gaga fans aren't the only ones being targeted. Aaron Brockler says he became a victim when he responded to a similar ad that offered Cleveland Browns tickets for $500. He said he sent the money, but the tickets never came.

"It all seemed pretty legitimate at the time," Brockler told WNBC. "He never responded to me after we sent him the payment."

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, which investigates online scams, said consumers should be wary of any seller who asks buyers to wire money, especially if there's an overseas address. It also warns that criminals can often duplicate Web pages that are made to look legitimate but are actually fake and part of their scam.

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"It's called spoofing, that's when criminals can duplicate a Web page that can be an exact copy," Jenny Shearer, a spokeswoman for the Internet Crime Complaint Center, told AOL News in a phone interview today. "People always want to try to save money, particularly for a popular performer like Lady Gaga. But if something seems too good to be true, it probably is."

The Manhattan district attorney's office did not immediately respond today to a request for comment.

Those who think they may have fallen victim to such a scam can report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
Filed under: Nation, Crime
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