Beware of Food Festival Scams on Popular Sites Like Groupon and Facebook.
Scammers prey on our appetites. According to Consumer Reports, they advertised fake food festivals on popular sites like Groupon, Facebook and even local newspapers.
Consumer Reports writes:
Over the past three months, Hot Garlic Crab Food, Super Crabs Festival, Dung Crabs Association and similar questionable events have been advertised in 21 cities across the United States. The fake festivals started in the San Francisco Bay Area, moved south to Los Angeles, spread to Phoenix and Houston, and are currently being marketed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Philadelphia.
Customers buy tickets, then come to the “festival” and find nothing there. If you are in these cities, be extra careful, but Consumer Reports offers some additional advice on buying these tickets in general. First, take a close look at the ticketing site. On one of the fake websites used in the scam, the words are truncated and in fact, they are redirected to a completely different, unrelated site for buying tickets. You can also check the contact information. Send an email and see if he comes back, or call the phone number and see if it works. Go to the full post for more details.
Beware of the fake food festival | Consumer reports