Fake facebook pages fool students into buying tickets for non-existent events
Deputy News Editor
Thousands of students are in danger of being conned, after a string of Facebook pages selling tickets, wristbands and t-shirts supposedly affiliated with Glasgow University’s Freshers’ Week have been appearing online.
Scam pages posing as pages affiliated to the University of Glasgow Facebook pages, such as ‘Glasgow Freshies’, have been gaining thousands of likes on the social media website, in spite of the fact they have no actual link to the University.
Some of the pages even sell fake tickets or wristbands to events that do not exist. Once Freshers buy the wristbands, the money is removed from their account and they are left without any confirmation of their purchase or any information about where to pick up the bands. Tickets are being sold to the ‘Where’s Wally vs Smurfs Party’ held at Walkabout Glasgow on the 18th. However, there is no mention of the party existing on the bar’s website.
The scam is not unique to Glasgow; students from other universities such as Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter and Manchester are also falling victim to similar faked pages. The ‘company’ behind many pages, ‘Electric Ents’, is based in Cardiff, and while they promote events behind a veneer of bold graphics and slick websites, often the events have no venue or merely state TBA.
Electric Ents have no contact number and has left customers confused and angry over their lack of accountability. Their pages are full of complaints about bad service and a lack of information.
Even though the event pages act under the pretence of being official, the information they post is often badly written and sometimes features unpleasant language. One post reads: “The cleaners won’t actually clean if your flat isn’t already clean, weird i (sic) know, they will just leave a bitchy note…” Another says: “It only takes one game of “I have never” to find out who the slag in the group is”.
Caelum Davis, Vice President of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC), said in a statement regarding the scam groups: “The SRC always have student welfare at the forefront of our activities- these rival groups don’t.
“We encourage freshers to buy our Freshers’ Passes because the majority of first years are new to the city and our 400 helpers from the four student bodies have an obligation to look out for them during their first week here at the University of Glasgow.”
He continued to say: “It is disappointing that groups like Electric Ents want to make some quick money off of our incoming first years, but it’s great to see most of the interaction between freshers is happening on our page. People seem really excited; it’s great to see this interaction occurring before they have even arrived.”
