(Prague, December 4, 2023) Right after the Saturday draw of the Euro football groups, to be held next year in Germany, the first dubious ticket offers appeared on the Internet, as the European Consumer Centre operating by the Czech Trade Inspection Authority warns. Fans should beware of scammers and use only official sales on the websites of the Czech Football Association and UEFA. The official sales began yesterday afternoon and will take the form of a draw for applications from people who register via the designated websites by 10pm on Wednesday.
“Almost immediately after Saturday evening’s draw, sponsored links started popping up on internet search engines, for example to buy tickets offered by non-European company Viagogo. This company is known for the fact that its resold and usually significantly more expensive tickets often either do not arrive at all or do arrive, but their codes may not always work at the entrances to sports events or concerts of music stars,” warns Ondřej Tichota, the Director of the European Consumer Centre Czechia.
Only official sales
For Czech fans, EURO 2024 has one very attractive offer – the Czech national team is playing its first match against Portugal in the nearby city of Leipzig. However, the hunt for tickets will also be great for its next two matches in Hamburg. UEFA saw a total of 20 million applications in the first round of sales in October. The second phase of ticket sales starts today, 4 December, with a total of one million tickets available for fans across Europe.
The high demand will also be exploited by professional fraudsters who let consumers pay by bank transfer but never deliver the tickets. It is therefore worth bearing in mind that tickets will generally only be available through the official channels of the organisers and that third party offers will be high risk, either fraudulent or significantly overpriced.
UEFA also thinks that there will be people who will want to sell tickets that they have already purchased. That is why it will open an online platform for such resales in the spring, where tickets can be sold to other interested individuals at their original price. Buying second-hand on this portal should be relatively safe, as it minimises the risk of invalid, fraudulent or overpriced tickets.
Tricky payment links
“There are bound to be phishing attacks in the form of SMS and email messages with links to fraudulent websites with offers or requests to repeat allegedly unmade payments for tournament tickets and the like,” Ondřej Tichota recalls a common way fraudsters nowadays obtain detailed information about consumers’ payment cards and bank accounts.
“Similarly, fraudsters will want to exploit the shortage of accommodation near the venues of Euro matches. They will imitate offers from well-known intermediary platforms such as Airbnb or Booking.com, or try to place fraudulent offers for guesthouse or hotel accommodation directly on them. Please note that all communication and payments take place on the respective platforms only and that fraudsters try to take communication and payments outside their more or less secure systems,” notes Ondřej Tichota.