Mum conned out of £680 for Taylor Swift tickets gets cash back with genius move
Scammers got a dose of karma after conning one savvy mum of a Swiftie out of £680.
Mastermind Melissa Love used her skills to outsmart the con artists who tried to sell her fake tickets to the Taylor Swift's coveted Eras Tour which she bought through Facebook. The 51-year-old from Fowey, Cornwall, was desperate to secure tickets for one of next year's Wembley dates on the All Too Well singer's European leg of the sellout world tour.
But after finding tickets for sale through a Facebook group and transferring money to "Dave Shepherd" - who had a convincing profile and even had mutual friends with Melissa - she soon realised to her horror she had been duped. Melissa, a graphic designer who runs her own business, never received any tickets through email and soon found she had been targeted by a Russian scammer, CornwallLive reports.
"But if there's one lesson every scammer should learn in life, it's this," she said, as she launched a masterful plot to get her money back. "Never cross a graphic designer." Melissa had all but accepted her fate after seeing others in the group had fallen for the ploy too.
So-called Dave Shepherd claimed he'd bought too many tickets in the pre-sale and was selling four (Melissa Love/CornwallLive)But with nothing left to lose she launched a devious plan to try and frighten the scammer into returning her money. She faked fraud prevention documents from her bank and made false claims about the International Banking Act of 1979 in the hopes it would frighten him enough to return the money.
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One message sent to him read: "I have some good news. I've just spoken to my bank's fraud prevention team and they are able to run a report to look up the IP address of where your Wise account was last accessed which will give your location." She then created an imaginary army of fellow villagers that plotted against him too, with one of her friends sending a message saying they had a friend in the fraud department at Wise, a foreign exchange company, and have caught and prosecuted "loads" of scammers - a claim which was completely false but enough to scare the scammer.
Melissa said: "I hope Dave is picturing a gang of well-mannered English people with pitchforks and really good computer skills. Like Peaky Blinders but with spaniels and a flask of tea." After a weekend of scamming the scammer, as she calls it - she was shocked to find the money returned to her bank account on Monday morning. "I was just so thrilled. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening before but I'm glad I gave him some sleepless nights over the weekend."
Melissa's message to the scammer 'Dave' (Melissa Love/CornwallLive)Stories have been shared far and wide about potential scams over Taylor Swift tickets since the Eras Tour was announced. They were notoriously hard to get hold of with hopeful buyers stressed about presale codes and huge queues and Ticketmaster glitches.
Last month a mum from Newport, Wales, warned of the same scam after she lost £750. She said the woman who was selling the tickets looked legit and had a mutual friend. Hours later she still had no tickets and the Facebook profile had been deleted.
Melissa added: "I would say to people don't buy anything off someone unless you know them personally in real life. I wouldn't trust any ticket sales unless you can go see the person and they can hand them over and it says general admission with no restrictions - or just go through official ticket resale sites.
"There was so much detail behind the profile and we had seven mutual Facebook friends so he must have been laying this for ages and he was in a tiny little village Facebook group. I'm just hoping he had a really bad Monday wondering if the fraud team were going to knock on his door."
"We still have no tickets but maybe Taylor will hear about it and reach out, who knows."
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