Oasis fans who have fallen victim to scams amid the rush to buy tour tickets have lost £346 on average, according to a high street bank’s analysis of its own data.
Lloyds Bank said hundreds of fans desperate to see the Gallagher brothers’ reunion tour had fallen victim to fraudsters, with more than 90 per cent of reported cases starting with fake adverts or posts on social media.
Victims have been asked to pay upfront for the tickets and once payment has been made, the scammers vanished, leaving many out of pocket.
Fans aged 35 to 44-years-old were the most likely to be duped — making up nearly a third of its reported cases — as some saw up to £1,000 being stolen.
Scams involved fake adverts, posts or listings on social media, offering tickets at discounted prices or access to events that have already sold out at inflated prices, the bank said.
The bank’s figures were based on claims made between August 27 — the date when Liam and Noel Gallagher confirmed the band was reforming — and September 25, but said this figure was likely to be much higher now.
Lloyds Bank said hundreds of fans desperate to see the Gallagher brothers’ reunion tour had fallen victim to fraudsters, with more than 90 per cent of reported cases starting with fake adverts or posts on social media (Noel and Liam pictured in 1998)
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) previously said it would be investigating whether Ticketmaster, the online ticket-selling platform breached consumer protection law over the selling of Oasis tickets and whether ‘dynamic pricing’ may have been used
Tickets were being sold for thousands of pounds each on site such as Stubhub (above)
Of the ticket fraud claims made during the month-long period it looked at, Oasis fans making up around 70 per cent of reported scams.
Liz Ziegler, fraud prevention director at Lloyds, said: ‘Predictably fraudsters wasted no time in targeting loyal Oasis fans as they scrambled to pick up tickets for next year’s must-see reunion tour.’
She added: ‘Buying directly from reputable, authorised retailers is the only way to guarantee you’re paying for a genuine ticket.
‘If you’re asked to pay via bank transfer, particularly by a seller you’ve found on social media, that should immediately set alarm bells ringing.’
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Lloyds warned that ticket scams often occur in two waves – the first when tickets are released for sale, and the second as the event date approaches.
Mandatory reimbursement rules came into force last month, overseen by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) for people who are tricked into transferring money to a fraudster.
Under the new rules, banks must reimburse authorised push payment (APP) fraud victims, unless the customer has been grossly negligent.
A reimbursement limit of £85,000 has been applied under the rules, although banks can choose to go further than this and repay higher amounts.
Oasis fans were sent into a frenzy in the summer when Noel, 57, and Liam, 52, announced they had put their differences aside and would return in 2025
The new protections apply when a transfer is made to and from a UK bank account. They cover transactions made from October 7 onwards and do not apply retrospectively.
Previously, a voluntary reimbursement code was in place, alongside some banks making their own refund guarantees.
Meanwhile, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would be investigating whether Ticketmaster, the online ticket-selling platform breached consumer protection law over the selling of Oasis tickets and whether ‘dynamic pricing’ may have been used.
The watchdog said fans ‘may not have been given clear information about ticket prices’ as they struggled to snap up tickets for the Oasis Live ’25 tour.
Regulators will investigate whether Ticketmaster has engaged in ‘unfair commercial practices’, prohibited under consumer law, and whether fans were given clear and timely information on the Uber-style ‘dynamic pricing’ used to set the cost of tickets.
Watchdogs are also set to assess whether concert-goers were pressured into buying the tickets within a short space of time and at a higher price than they thought they were going to pay.
It came after the band appeared to blow up some of the goodwill built up by fans over 15 years in a matter of days after announcing the reunion tour – as would-be concert-goers hit out at ‘dynamic pricing’ that doubled standing ticket prices.
Scalpers also appeared to scoop tickets in bulk and placed them on resale websites for vastly inflated figures.
