Transactional fraud in live event and entertainment ticketing continues to be a persistent challenge, requiring proactive strategies, vigilance and collaboration. To share information on this critical issue, the International Ticketing Association (INTIX) recently hosted a special webinar as part of its “INTIX on the Road” programming. In its first year, “INTIX on the Road” presented in-person sessions in Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles with this one as the first virtual “INTIX on the Road.” Later this year, the education will continue during in-person educational events in Las Vegas, Canada and Omaha.
Presented by the INTIX Professional Development & Education Fund (PD&E) in partnership with the Bay Area Professional Ticketing Association (BAPTA), the webinar was an encore workshop from the INTIX 2025 conference. It was a standing-room-only event in New York and ranked among the highest-rated sessions in post-conference surveys.
Maureen Andersen, President and CEO of INTIX, kicked off the webinar by emphasizing the value of this educational content sponsored by the PD&E, which is exclusively available with an INTIX membership. While this article summarizes many key insights, INTIX members have full access to the complete presentation and other valuable resources.
“We are perhaps perversely excited to be here to talk to you today about our collective fraud-fighting efforts,” said Matt Cooper, Vice President of Audience Services, Ensemble Arts Philly. “This issue has consumed lots of time for each of us over the summer and into the fall.”
Cooper continued, “In 2022, fraud was but a minor problem, costing us somewhere around $25,000 annually. Over the past several years, this problem has grown substantially, with costs reaching into the mid-six figures in 2024.”
Other expert panelists included Justin Foo, Associate Director, Sales and Customer Engagement for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Darren Coelho, Assistant Athletics Director, Ticket Operations at San Jose State University, and Bernie Barry, Director of Ticket Services at Wolf Trap Foundation.
“Long gone are the days when fraud was solely someone using a compromised credit card to buy a ticket or two to get into an event,” emphasized Barry. “Now, when the bad guys think of fraud, it is a business. It's not someone sneaking into a show but rather a well-organized, well-designed targeting of stolen credit cards. The intention now is to sell tickets through various platforms and collect those monies. In some ways, I think it's money laundering, and what our industry offers is highly desirable to both consumers who desperately want to attend sold-out or premium events and fraudsters who want to play on that emotion.”
Barry continued, “Consumers quite often think there is security that will prevent fraud, both through their credit card and also on the platform where they acquire the tickets. Fraudsters are also smart and organized. Once their community learns of best practices to dupe a venue or a ticketing platform, that information is shared and used to create business models. But what can we do? Well, we are doing it now. We can look to each other. We can share stories. We can [find] ways to prevent or at least minimize the effect on your business. We hope to take step one with you today.”
Understanding and Addressing Fraud
“Fraud is not simply a ticketing problem,” said Cooper. “It is a growing problem across all sorts of businesses.” Indeed, credit card fraud attempts rose 46% in 2021 alone, and they continue to grow at high rates annually.
“On average, companies lost around 6.5% of their revenue to fraud in 2024. We know that just over 5% of the attempted digital transactions that happen across the world each day are fraudulent in origin. We know that global online payment fraud will cost about $38 billion in 2023, and it is projected to grow to almost $91 billion by 2028,” Cooper shared.
Fraud is being driven by the explosive growth of online transactions combined with the availability, ease of use and low cost of AI tools that facilitate the creation of synthetic identities, making it easier for fraudsters to perpetrate their schemes.
Cooper explained that fraudsters often exploit secondary marketplaces to facilitate scams, but these platforms are not inherently problematic. Instead, they are a permanent part of the ticketing ecosystem, with many customers routinely using them to purchase tickets. Resale in secondary markets is a legal activity, at least in Pennsylvania, Cooper shared, where there are no price caps on resold tickets, and it often serves as a convenience for legitimate ticket holders. While venues and presenters can define and enforce their own ticket policies, they cannot unilaterally stop resale. Ticketing professionals must also navigate varying regulations depending on their state or municipality, making it essential to stay informed about local laws.
“Each of my colleagues here has to manage rules and regulations from their individual states and municipalities, and it is important that you are aware of the rules where you work,” Cooper emphasized.
Coelho went on to set the scene. He explained that a fraudster steals a credit card and uses it to purchase tickets, which are then resold on a secondary marketplace. An unsuspecting customer buys the tickets and attends the event. After the event and traditional settlement occur, the artist and promoter have already been paid. However, the original cardholder later files a chargeback, leaving the venue to absorb the financial loss.
Next, Foo discussed creating your strategy. “Those that are performing fraud are incredibly organized and incredibly strategic. As Bernie said, this is their livelihood. This is their business. So, they are very well equipped. We need to match that, especially with the levels of fraud that we are seeing,” Foo said.
This cannot be a one-person, one-tool fight. Instead, Foo and his team are using a “Swiss cheese” strategy of defense. “For those of you who are unfamiliar with that metaphor,” he said, “it simply means that any single layer of defense is going to have holes where fraud can get through. So, no single individual or tool is perfect.”
To combat fraud, the LA Phil implemented multiple independent layers of review and defense to ensure that vulnerabilities in one layer would be blocked by another. They formed a task force, including sales, IT, and finance, to develop a tailored strategy. One key discovery was that fraudsters were testing stolen credit cards through small-dollar online donations. In response, the task force expanded to include philanthropy team members, leveraging their expertise in donation analysis. The key takeaway is that organizations should analyze their own data, identify risk points, and develop customized fraud prevention strategies based on their unique challenges and opportunities.
Ensemble Arts Philly developed a chargeback tracking system to better assess fraud trends and measure the effectiveness of their prevention efforts. By creating an index that tracks the percentage of orders resulting in chargebacks, they can evaluate fluctuations in fraudulent activity over time. A chargeback database was also implemented to store key information, allowing for more flexible reporting and identifying trends and intervention opportunities. This data-driven approach has helped them refine their fraud prevention strategies.
Each of the speakers is seeing different trends. At Ensemble Arts Philly, early data analysis revealed suspicious transaction patterns, such as more orders than would be expected from unlikely locations. This included African and Southeast Asian countries, where the organization had minimal fan presence. Additionally, large groups of accounts were being created and accessing the ticketing system from a small, interconnected set of devices, suggesting coordinated fraudulent activity.
“We have definitely identified that we see high levels of fraud in our … high-demand shows, and we are seeing fraud uptick within the last 72 hours of a show before it plays off with us,” said Foo.
“Specific trends we have seen at San Jose State that are [most notable] are product trends and purchasing trends, similar events, specific late season home football games, tickets bought within a week of the game in seats from the visiting team section, a similar method of payment, and an email address attached to the account that is jumbled, i.e. my first name, Darren as an example, da.rr.en@outlook.com. Some of these Outlook accounts are created the same day or within a day, and the email address and ultimately the name and mailing address on the account don't match.”
“One thing that stands out for us is they are only purchasing premium seats,” said Barry. “We all know that if they are looking on a website, we get premium seats released as we get closer to showtime. They are only looking to resell them at face value, which makes them more attractive because the entire amount they are selling for is a net. It is not a broker who needs to build in a lift … Almost all transactions happen [within] 72 hours [of a show] … We are getting a lot the day of [show], and tickets are, as you can imagine, always forwarded.”
Fraud prevention tools can be applied at different phases of a credit card transaction, with the pre-authorization phase being a key opportunity for real-time risk assessment. Before a payment is processed, organizations can use customizable rule sets to detect potential fraud and whitelist trusted accounts when necessary, helping to prevent fraudulent transactions before they occur.
Foo explained how his organization leverages multiple fraud prevention tools, including a waiting room initially used only for major on-sales. The waiting room provides an additional layer of review for IP addresses, operating systems, and internet service providers. After successfully blocking 48% of web sessions as bot attempts during a summer single-ticket on-sale, the LA Phil opted to activate the waiting room full-time to detect and prevent fraudulent activity across all transactions.
Ensemble Arts Philly has also implemented a device risk tool, which collects information about devices that interact with its website. “[The tool] has helped us to identify relationships between accounts,” said Cooper. “People will use lots of different identities, names and different variations of email addresses to create unique accounts within our ticketing and CRM systems. However, we can identify that many of those accounts are created by the same or a small group of computers and then understand that those are potentially fraudsters. At Ensemble Arts, we use a tool called TruValidate offered by TransUnion, and many others are offered and used by some of our colleagues here.”
During the authorization phase of a transaction, several additional tools can enhance fraud prevention efforts. Key examples include address verification, card verification value (CVV) checks, 3D Secure (3DS) authentication, and authorization reporting, all of which help validate transactions and identify potential risks.
Foo found analyzing standard reports helpful as he worked to educate himself and get buy-in from others. “I started with what I knew how to do. That was as simple as taking standard reports, like our daily order listing, and filtering them by new accounts, suspicious emails and out-of-state [or] out-of-country orders. So, while we already have all these sophisticated layers in place, I started from what I knew how to do and relied on the data from our fraudster databases to tell me what I should look for and review rather than going every single order.”
In some cases, Foo says internal reports may not provide enough information to make a confident decision regarding the risk of a transaction. Various tools, both free and paid, can assist in verifying patron information and making informed decisions. Non-profits are encouraged to collaborate with their development or fundraising departments, as these teams often have access to databases for reviewing and researching constituents. For example, a sales team member partnered with a development representative to utilize these databases and discovered a string of recent orders from individuals who had passed away within the last five days. Tools like WealthEngine, DonorSearch and LexisNexis, often used by fundraising departments, can provide crucial information, such as mailing addresses, dates of birth and dates of death, which can help detect potential fraud.
Barry encouraged webinar attendees to familiarize themselves with what their providers offer in the space. This includes ticketing providers and credit card processors. “If they are working solely in ticketing, they are hearing about it from somebody else … [and] if they are a credit card processor, they are hearing it from many different people reaching out to them about fraud … What are they contractually obligated to do to help you, but what will they also do? If they are a good vendor, they want to keep your business. Leverage that … and also find out what they can do in the future if you have been with them [for] a while because that is really the first line of defense.”
Cooper said your ticket policy also plays a vital role in combatting fraud.
“As part of our fraud process, we did an extensive review of ticket policies, reviewing ticket policies for many of our colleague and partner organizations across INTIX, and we made some pretty significant alterations.”
Barry said that once risky orders are identified, the next step depends on the certainty of the fraud. If the transaction is confirmed as fraudulent, the order should be canceled and the card refunded. If there is uncertainty, consider invalidating the barcode and asking the patron to visit the ticket office for a one-on-one discussion to resolve the issue. Often, Barry says offering food or drink coupons or seat upgrades can help placate the customer while they are assured that the transaction was fraudulent. Additionally, blocking an account from making future purchases and tracking account attributes in the ticketing system can help identify patterns, such as buying habits or IP addresses.
“Another thing that we do to help lessen the burden at showtime is we give a list of the suspected fraud orders to all our sellers,” said Barry. “So, when the patron comes up to the window, they do not have to relive the experience that they just had with the ticket taker, and it looks like we are giving them an informed opinion if we were already expecting them. We have learned that this helps patrons understand that what they thought was going to be a great night might just have one hiccup. And I think they think we are taking fair and even action when we do that.”
“It is important to remember that on the other side of this transaction, there is a person who purchased a ticket expecting to come to your venue to have a great night out,” emphasized Cooper. “They, as well as we, are victims in this. So, it is important for us to recognize and remember that as we work with them and try and help to get them into our venues in ways that both respect our need to be paid for our tickets but also respect their desire to come and see a great night out.”
“I want to reiterate that this is not a set it and forget it [situation]. This is a business, and fraudsters are persistent,” said Foo. “I personally have gotten so frustrated time after time because I feel like as soon as I find one effective tool, the fraudsters already have found a way around it. So, you consistently need to review, assess new practices and challenges and adjust and respond to those. Also, be aware of what's coming up. If you have specific sales events coming up, think through the unique risks of that sale … and don't be afraid to tailor your fraud strategy for that specific event.”
In closing, the experts emphasized the importance of leaning on peers and professional networks. Organizations such as INTIX, regional ticketing groups, the Merchant Risk Council, the National Association of Athletic Ticket Sales and Operations (NAATSO) and the National Association for Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) provide excellent opportunities to connect with others, share insights and collaborate on strategies for combatting fraud.
Editor’s Note: INTIX members who were unable to attend the webinar can contact us to access the full recording. Not an INTIX member? Join today to gain access to this webinar and other valuable resources to advance your ticketing career.
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