Alarm bells ring over ticket scams more vicious than voice phishing

A K-pop concert is held on Yeongdong-daero in Gangnam, Seoul, last October. Courtesy of Gangnam District Office

A woman in her 30s, identified as A, planned to attend g.o.d. member Son Ho-young's fan meeting concert on March 23 and 24 to celebrate the 25th anniversary since his debut, but her attempt to secure tickets turned into a nightmare.

She managed to get a ticket for the first day but failed to secure one for the second day. Disappointed, she came across a post on social media from a vendor claiming to have tickets available for the second day and decided to inquire further.

The vendor quoted a price of 150,000 won ($113), 30,000 won more than the original price of 121,000 won. Suspicious that the markup was relatively small, A hesitated, but felt reassured when the vendor showed her an ID.

She transferred the money. However, the vendor then claimed a 2,000 won fee had been deducted and asked her to send 152,000 won, promising to refund the 150,000 won after deducting the fee.This was followed by repeated requests to "meet the minimum refund amount" to get her money back.

The "minimum amount" kept increasing — from 1 million won to 2 million won, and eventually up to 10 million won. In just a few hours, A broke her savings and even took on debt, transferring a total of around 62 million won, but received nothing back.

"I was desperate to get back the money I had already sent," A tearfully recalled. "I realized too late that it was a scam.

A petition posted by victims of ticket scams on the National Assembly's petition website. Screenshot from the National Assembly website

Total losses estimated at 3.8 billion won

What was once a straightforward scam of taking money and disappearing has evolved into something as malicious as voice phishing, as shown in A's case, and is now a recurring issue at major concerts and events.

Victims suspect this is an organized crime operation. Based on the account holder's name, B, and their methods, victims discovered that B and several others were conducting similar scams across various platforms around the same time.

The screenshots claiming "account errors" and the repeated demands to "meet the minimum refund amount" were identical.

Currently, there are about 4,800 victims gathered in KakaoTalk open chat rooms, and the total losses are estimated to be around 3.8 billion won.

The scammers also boldly use the victims' identities for further crimes. C, a 22-year-old attempting to buy a concert ticket for a K-pop concert, was contacted by the vendor at dawn, claiming, "There's been an accidental deposit; please return the money."

Seeing 180,000 won in her account, C immediately transferred it back, only to receive a call from the police the next day for a witness investigation. The transferred amount turned out to be another victim's money.

It appears the scammers use this method to avoid account tracing. Another victim, D, 25, who had provided their phone number and ID to the scammers, found their account on a secondhand trading platform suspended after someone reported it for fraud.

According to a post on the National Assembly's public petition site, the scam, which began on March 5 this year, involved 301 names and 1,826 accounts. Although it's hard to be exact, as some victim accounts were also used, it is evident that the perpetrators created multiple accounts per person.

In this screenshot, the scammer is demanding victim C return money that was "accidentally deposited." Courtesy of victim C

Rising losses, slow investigation

As the number of victims grows rapidly, identifying the suspects remains challenging due to the nature of cybercrime, causing police investigations to drag on.

The police are struggling because the transactions mainly occur on social media, many involve "borrowed name" accounts and the account holders are scattered across the country. Victims are left to share information and prevention tips among themselves as a means of self-defense.

The Seoul Gwanak Police Station, which received complaints in July, is investigating some of the suspects on charges including organized crime.

Kim Song-yi, an attorney from Lawoffice Discovery representing the victims, said, "The criminals exploit the fact that law enforcement often does not actively pursue small-scale fraud cases, resulting in numerous victims. Swift investigations to apprehend the core members of these criminal organizations are essential to prevent similar crimes in the future."

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, a sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.