Be careful if you want to attend events at the 2024 Olympic Games! Many scammers are taking advantage of the event to sell fake tickets on fraudulent sites. And the official app is incompatible with some smartphones…
The Paris Olympic Games are fast approaching and are bringing with them a whole host of upheavals and restrictive measures to say the least. Between QR codes to have the right to travel and the Transport Public Paris 2024 application to make travel as smooth as possible, which promises to be laborious, and not to mention the increase in cyberattacks, the event is awaited with as much impatience as anxiety. And we are not at the end of our troubles! The question of tickets to attend the events is proving to be a thorny one. Because while their sale has been a real success, despite sometimes high prices – seats range from 24 to 2,700 euros for the opening ceremony alone – spectators are also expected to face difficulties. Between particularly sophisticated scams and the incompatibility of the official application with old smartphones, things are looking bad!
Tickets for the 2024 Olympics: a vast scam campaign underway
Given the success of ticket sales to attend the events, it did not take long for scammers to try to take advantage of them. Broadly speaking, there are two types of scams. The first consists of selling real tickets, but at prices much higher than those charged by the official ticket office. The second consists of selling fake tickets, which the victims will never receive or which will not be valid on site – even though they have paid for them, again at a high price.
And it goes without saying that the criminals have gone to great lengths to deceive potential buyers. Cybersecurity researchers at Quointelligence have spotted a massive fraudulent campaign, dubbed “Ticket Heist”. The scammers have created hundreds of websites selling tickets that look like official ones. No fewer than 700 domain names have been created since 2022, and around 20 new sites are created every month. Russian speakers are particularly targeted by these scams, but in reality, anyone can be fooled…
The fraudulent sites are of quality, worthy of official platforms. You can select your places and even book accommodation. The payment system is done via Stripe, a legitimate platform, since the criminals are not looking to steal banking data, but “only” to pocket the money from the transactions – fake tickets sell for between 300 and 1,000 euros, the bill can be quite painful.
To avoid getting scammed, keep in mind that there is only one official website that sells tickets (tickets.paris2024.org) – any other site is therefore necessarily a scam. If the resale is done from individual to individual, check the validity of the tickets on the official application. Remember that there are only virtual tickets for now. So no one can provide you with a physical ticket for now.
Tickets for the 2024 Olympic Games: an official application incompatible with certain smartphones
But even once you have real tickets in your pocket, the problems are not over yet! Indeed, the Paris 2024 ticketing is completely dematerialized. As a result, ticket holders must download the official “Paris 2024 Tickets” application and import their tickets if they want to be able to use them. A decision that aims to strengthen security and limit fraud. However, UFC-Que Choisir has found that it cannot be installed on some Android phones purchased more than six years ago, forcing some future viewers to have to purchase a new smartphone if they want to enjoy the show!
More precisely, it is not the phones themselves that are obsolete, but their operating system. Indeed, the official application runs on Android 9 or iOS 15 minimum. Below that, it is impossible to download it! A problem that is likely to concern a certain number of people because approximately 10% of smartphones running Google’s operating system currently have versions prior to Android 9.
Faced with this problem, the organizers recommend the following solution: “If your device is not compatible with the “Paris 2024 Tickets” application, we invite you to come with a friend or relative whose smartphone is compatible. You can then log in to your account on their device, then log out once the session is over.
Another alternative: go, on the day, to the ticket office (Ticket Box Office) located at the entrance to the competition sites and present your ID and the ticket order number. This means having to queue again for each event… And it is impossible to resell the tickets, because you have to go through the official application to do so! Faced with the answers “a bit off the mark” customer service, some had no choice but to buy a new smartphone, paying an amount they hadn’t really planned to spend… Luckily these are “popular” games, otherwise what would it have been like!