Victims of festive scam
Facebook that it was a scam.
“It turns out that the address given for the event is actually an empty field,
“I went to the Facebook page which had shut down, so I contacted Universe who they sell the tickets through and they told me they were looking into it and pausing ticket sales.”
“We spoke with the bank to cancel our cards and get new ones but they can’t claim the money back until it’s cleared our account and then they will try to claim it back.”
Following the discovery of the scam, those affected have since been contacted by support teams at Universe and given an apology, as well as assurances that they are not set to be left out of pocket.
In the message, the firm say: “We have thoroughly investigated this event and have since determined it is fraudulent.
“We immediately stopped all sales on the event and have since refunded all transactions. The fraudulent event organiser has since been banned and blacklisted from our platform.
“Although the event was fraudulent, all transactions were safely processed by our payment processor and your card details were not exposed to the event organiser.”
Police Scotland confirmed to the Observer that the scam was still being investigated by officers.
A spokesperson for Stirling Council added: “The council was alerted to a scam involving a Facebook page advertising a drive through Winter Wonderland event in the Stirling area.
“The event claimed to be in Blairlogie, Stirling, but all photos and advertising materials have been copied from another business’ website. No such event is taking place in this area.
“It is absolutely deplorable that families have been scammed in such a callous way during a public health emergency and as we head into the Christmas period. We have every sympathy for those affected. “Stirling and
Clackmannanshire Trading Standards are liaising with Police Scotland, who are asking people who have purchased tickets to report the matter to Police via 101.
“People are also urged to contact their bank (preferably
Fraud Team) to ask for the transaction to be charged back.
“If people are not satisfied with their bank’s response they should follow their bank’s formal complaints procedure.”
My wife saw on Facebook it was a scam. The address given is an empty field