CANBERRA: Australian football fans have been warned to be wary of scams ahead of the Matildas’ FIFA Women’s World Cup semifinal, reported Xinhua.
With the match against England at Stadium Australia on Wednesday night officially sold out, the National Anti-Scam Centre, a subsidiary of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), on Tuesday said it has received reports of scammers targetting fans looking for tickets.
Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the ACCC, said reported scams have included fraudulent ticket sales and fake links to watch Matildas matches online.
“Understandably, Australians are inspired by the phenomenal success of the Matildas, but fans should be very careful when last-minute ticket shopping for hugely popular events, such as the World Cup finals,“ she said in a statement.
“We are already seeing initial reports of scam activity, particularly on Facebook, where scammers are responding to posts from people looking for tickets and using compromised accounts to sell non-existent tickets.
“There have also been reports of scammers claiming there is a problem with the payment and asking for it to be made again.”
A capacity crowd of 75,784 people is expected to watch the Matildas take on the reigning European champions, England, on Wednesday night. That attendance would match the Matildas’ previous two World Cup matches at Stadium Australia – wins over the Republic of Ireland and Denmark – as the largest crowd to ever watch the national women’s team.
Amid high demand for second-hand tickets, the ACCC urged Australians to only buy tickets through FIFA’s official channels.
It noted that livestream links were a “relatively new” form of scam, whereby users are directed to a website that asks for their credit card details to unlock a broadcast of a World Cup match.
“In most cases, scammers steal the credit card details and fail to deliver the content signed up for,“ Lowe said.
The 2023 World Cup, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, runs from July 20 to Aug 20. Notably, only the top two teams from the eight groups advanced to the round of 16, making it the first Women’s World Cup to feature 32 teams.-Bernama