Avoiding World Cup ticket scams: FBI warns of dozens of spoofed FIFA websites
AUSTIN, Texas - If you're trying to get last-minute tickets to the World Cup, be careful where you buy them from.
The Better Business Bureau says they often see ticket scams in general across the state.
What you can do:
If you're buying a ticket on a resale site, but the seller says it's easier to pay on a platform like Venmo or Zelle, that's a red flag.
"Once you hand that money over or send that money, over there's no getting that money back likely. It's pretty much untraceable," Katie Galan, director of education and community engagement for Better Business Bureau Heart of Texas, said.
Buy directly from the FIFA website, and use a credit card, not a debit card.
"Should you be scammed, your credit company will go after them on their own and then they're not going freeze your account. You won't be held liable for those charges," Galan said.
Be wary of spoofed FIFA sites
The FBI recently warned of spoofed FIFA websites, which could collect users' personal information. Most of them have some variation of 'FIFA' in the fake URLs, like "fifa [dot] cam" or "fifa [dot] help."
Type fifa.com directly into the address bar for the official site.
Avoid sponsored results if you use a search engine. It might be a scammer paying to put their website up top. Any subpages should be clicked on through the official FIFA page.
"https" before the web address means it's a secure site.
Be mindful of fake QR codes.
"Usually if you hover over them, you can see where it's going direct you to, so you can tell if it's some weird website that's got just random letters or maybe it's a person's name. We see that a lot of time," Galan said.
If you only get a paper ticket, that's likely fake.
"Any reputable source is going to give you a digital copy of that ticket. if they're only wanting to give you the paper copy, that again is also a big red flag," Galan said.
If you're buying on social media, try to only buy from people you know.
Avoid buying from scalpers.
"If we want to be 100% safe, really not a good idea to buy from them. Going directly to the source is really going to be our safest option," Galan said.
If you've fallen victim to a scam, report it to the Better Business Bureau and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.
The BBB says fraud reports come in over time, so they don't have statistics on the number of scams yet.
The Source: Information in this report comes from reporting/interviews by FOX 7 Austin's Angela Shen