Fake Wristband Plagues Lolla Fan

There’s nothing like looking at your Lollapalooza wristband the day before the festival and then discovering it’s fake.

Jordan Blum purchased his ticket through an outside vendor to avoid the surging prices of festival wristbands as they continued to sell out, a mistake he won’t make again.

Blum purchased the ticket from a friend whose dad made the cash-for-wristband exchange at a train station in May. The wristband even came in an envelope with "official paperwork."

“It just sounded like a really good deal,” he said. “When I saw the ticket it didn’t look fake.”

But when Blum saw a tweet from Lollapalooza warning of the counterfeit wristbands, he was shocked to find his was a phony.


“I realized mine was the exact same as the one in the fake picture,” Blum said.

The 17-year-old was left stranded with one day until the festival he had been waiting for all summer.

But this was not an isolated incident. In fact, Chicago police say they're seeing several cases of counterfeit tickets being sold over the internet this summer.

The fake tickets are being offered through social media and online classified sites and in most cases, the victims haven't realized the tickets are useless until after the fact.

Blum was able to purchase a festival sanctioned wristband just in time for the weekend festivities, but advised future ticket buyers to beware.

“Don’t do an impulse buy,” Blum said. “You don’t want to end up on the day before the festival realizing you have a fake ticket. I’m not going to get my money back.”

Police have the following tips for ticket buyers:

  • Only buy tickets from a reputable broker or from the venue itself;
  • Do not buy tickets off the street;
  • Be aware of who you are buying from, and verify identification;
  • Report suspicious activity immediately.

Anyone with information on counterfeit tickets is asked to call the CPD Financial Crimes Unit at (312) 746-9661.
 

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