A mum who was scammed into buying fake Taylor Swift tickets has revealed how she managed to get he money back – and some revenge.
Melissa Love lost £680 after she tried to get her hands on the concert tickets which have sold out across the country.
The 51-year-old, who runs a graphic design business, said she was reeled in by a seemingly innocent message on a small community group on Facebook.
She bank-transferred the funds to ‘Dave Shepherd’, who had mutual friends and a convincing profile.
But she never received the coveted Eras Tour tickets and soon realised ‘Dave’ was a Russian scammer, despite ‘initially passing the vibe check’
‘If there’s one lesson every scammer should learn in life, it’s this: Never cross a graphic designer,’ she said.
Melissa, from Fowey, Cornwall launched a 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.
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.’
One of her friends also sent 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.
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 delighted to find the money returned to her bank account on Monday morning.
She said: ‘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.’
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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