ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Looking to attend a local festival or event? Be wary about who you give information to, as organizers say their Facebook pages are being targeted by scammers.
The first annual St. Pete Italian Fest kicks off Saturday on the St. Pete Pier. It’s free to attend, so when someone started trying to sell tickets, the organizer noticed a growing problem.
“Mainly we use Facebook for our advertising. We create an event on there and invite people through there,” says Dona Crowley, a Tampa Bay-area event organizer who’s leading St. Pete Italian Fest. “We have over 60,000 interested on our Facebook now.”
But with events generating quite the buzz, unfortunately, there are people looking to take advantage.
“What the scammers do is they go on the page and they contact people that leave comments about vendor spaces and try to sell them vendor spaces,” Crowley says, adding the issue has gotten worse over the year and she wants to get the word out.
Crowley says posts and comments pop up non-stop from random profiles seemingly generated just to try and gather information.
“They'll say 'We have spots left. Contact me for a car space,' you know, 'Contact us for a vendor space,' whatever it is, and it's just it's just very, very frustrating,” Crowley added.
She’s reported and deleted them, and even tried contacting scammers herself; they ask for info but refuse to talk on the phone.
“They will email me and they'll try to get my payment and everything and then I’ll tell them, you know, I’m the owner of this event, who are you?” Crowley said.
The Better Business Bureau has sent out alerts regarding similar scams for craft fairs on social media. They give three tips.
"Do your homework. Before applying to be a vendor at a craft fair, do plenty of research. Look up the person or company organizing the event. You should be able to view their website, event reviews, and other details. If you can't find anything, consider it a red flag. Finally, talk to other vendors in your area to find out if they've heard of the craft fair.
Use caution when making payments. If you determine a craft fair is legitimate, you'll still want to be careful when paying for your spot. If an event organizer insists on payment through a digital wallet app, especially if they ask you to pay using the friends and family function or if they ask you to send the money to a strange email address, think twice. Remember that peer-to-peer payment systems are the same as paying cash. Once you've sent the funds, you cannot get them back.
Don't give in to intimidation tactics. If an organizer pressures you to participate or is pushy about receiving payment but reticent about giving details about the craft fair, you're probably dealing with a con artist."
Crowley says vendors or anyone with questions should contact them directly.
“They shouldn't reply to anybody that's trying to sell a space or tickets or anything like that. Just go on to the website and they can find my information there. And they can also apply or sign up online,” Crowley said, assuring that the issue won’t deter any fun planned for the weekend.
“We're going to have tons of Italian food, Italian bands, Italian vendors and Italian cars, which is my favorite part," she added.
The festival runs from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and remember — there's no need to buy a ticket.
