She transferred over $700 over PayNow to see her idol, but never received the tickets

Concert ticket scams accounted for over one in 10 e-commerce scams reported in the first half of 2026, according to Singapore Police Force’s data.

Concert ticket scams can be hard to curb, as fans often turn to unauthorised channels to seek tickets when a show is sold out.

Jan Lee, Brand Newsroom

Published Oct 18, 2026, 04:00 AM

Dai Yujing, 31, thought she had found the perfect way to celebrate her friend’s birthday: Two adjacent tickets to Taiwanese quartet F*Forever’s sold-out concert in Singapore, close to their original price.

Instead, the Singaporean accountant lost over $700 after transferring the money to a seller on Telegram. She paid through funds transfer service PayNow, which made her feel safer, she says.

Dai never received the tickets.

It started a week before the Aug 15 show, she recalls. She sought two adjacent seats in a Telegram group of over 100 fans looking to buy, sell or swap F*Forever tickets.

A seller named Andi messaged her, offering two such seats at $358 each, she says. Screenshots of the tickets looked legitimate to her.

The seats mattered. Dai and her two friends had already bought tickets through authorised platform Ticketmaster when sales opened in June , but the seats were separate.

She did not want one friend, whose birthday fell on show day, to sit alone.

Dai asked to pay for one ticket first, but the seller insisted she pay for both before sending her the tickets, she says.

Pressed for time, Dai went ahead and transferred the money.

“It was one week before the concert, and my friends couldn’t sell their existing tickets until I had secured the adjacent seats,” she says.

Andi blocked her on Telegram after. Dai immediately reported the incident to the police and called her bank, but the money was gone, she says

Dai is not alone. Among 3,865 e-commerce scams reported in the first half of 2026 , 483 involved concert tickets, resulting in losses of $328,000, according to Singapore Police Force’s (SPF) data.

Concert ticket scams can be hard to curb, says Jeffery Chin, deputy director of SPF’s Scam Public Education Office.

Such scams often occur when buyers face high demand, limited availability and the pressure to act quickly – conditions that can trick even seasoned concert-goers, he explains.

“When a show is sold out, the perceived cost of missing out overrides rational caution,” he says.

Fans may turn to unofficial channels in a bid to see their idols, he adds. Scammers prey on this by pushing buyers to pay fast, claiming tickets are limited, in high demand, or time-sensitive.

SPF has reached out to online platforms like Carousell, Facebook Marketplace and TikTok to remove resale concert ticket listings.

In Dai’s case, she had waited over 20 years for the F*Forever reunion. The group featured three leads of the popular Taiwanese idol drama, Meteor Garden (2001), and rock band Mayday’s frontman Ashin.

Their three sold-out Singapore Indoor Stadium shows , held from Aug 14 to 16, drew 33,000 fans.

Perceived safeguards

Paying via PayNow was partly why Dai let her guard down, she says.

She thought the transaction could be traced because PayNow profiles are linked to a bank account or e-wallet in Singapore through identifiers like mobile numbers or NRIC.

But a PayNow number, Unique Entity Number (UEN), QR code or displayed account is not proof that the recipient is legitimate, SPF’s Chin says.

A UEN is an official identification number assigned by the Government to entities like businesses, charities, and societies.

While the police can identify the PayNow account holder, that person may not be the scammer, he says.

He explains: “Scammers, particularly those operating as part of organised syndicates, may make use of bank or payment accounts belonging to other persons, commonly referred to as money mules, to receive and move scam proceeds.”

Dai was not the only victim who believed PayNow was a safeguard.

Hours before American pop diva Mariah Carey’s Singapore concert last October , a 32-year-old Singapore permanent resident, who wants to be known only as Paul for privacy reasons, responded to a ticket listing off online marketplace Carousell.

Paul, a self-employed public relations professional, was told to transfer $250 to a UEN via PayNow.

He complied but never received the ticket.

Paul thought he had done his checks. He recalls searching the UEN on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s (ACRA) Bizfile portal. It belonged to a registered educational support company, and he thought it could be traced.

He says: “I don’t consider myself someone susceptible to scams. The fact that the sale was through PayNow UEN, even if it wasn’t foolproof, gave me some distance away from the feeling of being easy prey.”

Paul reported the scam to police, but did not recover his money.

Dai feels she should have been more vigilant.

She later realised that Andi’s screenshots differed slightly from those on the actual Ticketmaster site.

She was still riding the high of an F*Forever show in Kuala Lumpur when the scam happened.

“I was not exactly paying full attention,” she says.

This is part of a series titled “ Act against scams ”, in partnership with the Singapore Police Force and the National Crime Prevention Council.

Internet crimes and scams

根据新加坡警方的统计数据，2026 年上半年报告的电子商务诈骗案中，超过十分之一是演唱会门票诈骗。

演唱会门票诈骗很难遏制，因为当演出门票售罄时，歌迷往往会转向非官方渠道寻求门票。

Jan Lee，品牌新闻编辑室

发布于 2026 年 10 月 18 日 上午 4:00

31岁的戴玉静认为自己找到了庆祝朋友生日的完美方式：以接近原价的价格，购买了两张相邻的台湾女子组合F*Forever在新加坡举办的已售罄演唱会的门票。

然而，这位新加坡会计师在通过Telegram向卖家转账后，却损失了700多美元。她说，她后来通过PayNow转账服务付款，这让她感觉更安全。

戴先生始终没有收到票。

她回忆说，事情是从8月15日演出前一周开始的。她加入了一个有100多名粉丝的Telegram群组，想找到两张相邻的座位，这个群组里的人都在买卖或交换F*Forever的演出门票。

她说，一个名叫安迪的卖家给她发信息，提供两张这样的座位，每张358美元。她觉得票的截图看起来很正规。

座位很重要。戴和她的两个朋友早在六月份售票开始时就通过官方平台Ticketmaster购买了门票，但座位是分开的。

她不想让一位生日恰好在演出当天的朋友独自一人观看。

戴女士说，她要求先付一张票的钱，但卖家坚持要她先付两张票的钱才把票寄给她。

由于时间紧迫，戴先生还是把钱转了过去。

“当时距离演唱会还有一周时间，我的朋友们还没来得及卖掉他们现有的票，我就没办法买到相邻的座位了。”她说。

事后，安迪在Telegram上拉黑了她。戴立即向警方报案并联系了她的银行，但她说，钱已经不见了。

戴女士并非个例。新加坡警察部队（SPF）的数据显示，在2026年上半年报告的3865起电子商务诈骗案中，有483起涉及演唱会门票，造成32.8万美元的损失。

新加坡警察部队防诈骗公共教育办公室副主任杰弗里·钦表示，演唱会门票诈骗很难遏制。

他解释说，这类骗局往往发生在买家面临高需求、供应有限以及必须迅速行动的压力时——这种情况甚至会蒙骗经验丰富的音乐会观众。

他说：“当一场演出门票售罄时，人们感受到的错过演出的代价会压倒理性的谨慎。”

他还补充说，粉丝们可能会转向非官方渠道，试图见到自己的偶像。骗子们正是利用这一点，催促买家尽快付款，声称门票数量有限、需求量大或有时效性。

新加坡警察部队已联系 Carousell、Facebook Marketplace 和 TikTok 等在线平台，要求删除转售演唱会门票的信息。

戴女士等待F*Forever重聚已经超过20年了。该组合由热门台湾偶像剧《流星花园》（2001）的三位主演以及摇滚乐队五月天的主唱阿信组成。

他们在新加坡室内体育馆举行的三场演出全部售罄，从 8 月 14 日至 16 日，共吸引了 33,000 名粉丝。

感知到的保障措施

戴女士表示，使用 PayNow 付款是她放松警惕的部分原因。

她认为这笔交易可以被追踪，因为 PayNow 账户通过手机号码或身份证号码等标识符与新加坡的银行账户或电子钱包关联。

但新加坡警察部队的 Chin 表示，PayNow 号码、唯一实体编号 (UEN)、二维码或显示的账户并不能证明收款人是合法的。

UEN 是政府分配给企业、慈善机构和社团等实体的官方识别号码。

他说，虽然警方可以识别出 PayNow 账户持有人，但这个人未必就是诈骗犯。

他解释说：“诈骗分子，特别是那些作为有组织犯罪集团一部分运作的诈骗分子，可能会利用属于其他人的银行或支付账户（通常被称为洗钱骡子）来接收和转移诈骗所得。”

戴并不是唯一一个认为 PayNow 是一种保障措施的受害者。

去年十月，美国流行天后玛丽亚·凯莉在新加坡举行演唱会前几个小时，一位32岁的新加坡永久居民（出于隐私原因，他只愿透露自己名叫保罗）在在线市场Carousell上看到了一张门票信息。

保罗是一名自雇的公关专业人士，他被告知通过 PayNow 向 UEN 转账 250 美元。

他照做了，但始终没有收到罚单。

保罗以为他已经做足了功课。他记得曾在新加坡会计与企业管制局（ACRA）的Bizfile门户网站上搜索过该统一企业编号（UEN）。该编号属于一家注册的教育支持公司，他觉得应该可以查到。

他说：“我不认为自己容易上当受骗。虽然通过 PayNow UEN 进行交易并非万无一失，但这确实让我远离了成为待宰羔羊的感觉。”

保罗向警方报案称自己被骗，但并没有追回他的钱。

戴觉得自己应该更加警惕。

她后来意识到，安迪的屏幕截图与 Ticketmaster 网站上的屏幕截图略有不同。

骗局发生时，她还沉浸在吉隆坡 F*Forever 演唱会的兴奋之中。

“我当时并没有全神贯注，”她说。

这是与新加坡警察部队和国家预防犯罪理事会合作推出的“打击诈骗”系列活动的一部分。

网络犯罪和诈骗