Trapping into Halloween ticket scam is even scarier than “ghosts” and “scary pumpkins”. Stay safe and follow these tips to outwit a scammer selling fake tickets. 

Looking to buy online tickets to Halloween event in your neighborhood or at Universal Studio Singapore?

If so, you must be alert.

This is because online Halloween ticket scams are making headlines these days in Singapore.

Recently, Singapore police held 10 teenagers for selling fake USS Horror event tickets online. These investigations have been made on the basis of the complaints lodged by the victims from August to October. Most of these victims reported that they discovered that the tickets were fake after they were denied entry to the events.

There have been at least 35 incidents of Halloween ticket scam reported so far. Victims were asked for advanced payments in deposit or as COD by tricksters. However after getting the payments, these scam artists didn’t deliver the tickets to the victims or gave fake tickets to them. Most of these scams were operated on online marketplace like Carousell and Facebook.

Read Also: 10 Mistakes That Make Your Ecommerce Website a Hacker’s Target

So, you should be careful while purchasing online Halloween tickets in Singapore. Be alert and avoid getting into the trap of such scam with the measures given below.

Tips to Avoid Halloween Ticket Scams

Avoid Emails or Notifications Promising Free Halloween Tickets:

It is common to have your email account teemed with promotional emails related to Halloween these days. Many of these emails may be claiming to give you free tickets to Halloween. Here you need to be careful as it may be a scam, especially if it is hard to get Halloween tickets due to the rush.

Such luring emails are designed to trick you into first spamming your email contacts with same fake offers and then sourcing your personal information to other scam websites if they don’t ask you for some payment.

Alert When You Get Hard-to-Get Tickets Easily at the Last Moment:

Getting tickets for Halloween is not easy during a peak period. Either you have to pay extra or seek some “other ways” to get the tickets to Halloween event. So, it is obvious that you consider yourself lucky on getting tickets at the very last moment.

But have ever thought there may be something wrong at the bottom?

Don’t be moved by the euphoria of getting tickets easily. Instead, be extra cautious and figure out the reality. How? The next two points will help you.

Don’t Take Decision in Haste:

A scam artist is likely to insist you to get the tickets as soon as possible, learning that you are “desperately” seeking them. For example, he may convince you like this—I’ve got 5 tickets now. Hurry up or else you won’t get any of them.

If an online stranger is acting like this, then take it as a warning sign that you might be getting trapped.

Meet the Person in “Real” If Possible:

See if an online ticket seller can meet you in person. Though it may not seem feasible piece of advice for many readers out there, it will help you avoid the possible scam. Meet the person, see the tickets and make the transaction only if you find everything alright. You can bring a friend with you for added protection.

Use Secure Payment Method:

No matter how genuine an online ticket seller sounds, make sure to pay via secure payment method like PayPal. Besides being a secure platform, PayPal returns the refund along with shipping costs if its listed vendor doesn’t provide promised services or turns out to be fake. Make sure to report the problem within 45 days.

If a seller asks you to transfer money via Western Union or MoneyGram, the seller is likely to be a scammer. If the payment is done through a coupon website, find out how the online site safeguards customer’s interest in case of poor services.

Don’t Pay Upfront for a Promise:

A scam artist may ask you to pay upfront for the things like charity, credit and loan offers or other lures. For examples, he may promise you a prize on paying some amount before the purchase. In this way, they will take the money and will never appear.

So, you must have understood how to avoid getting into Halloween ticket scam. The simple solution is that you shouldn’t pay until you get the real tickets.

There are various content marketing trends that dominated 2017, You may notice that your own blog has a high readership, high online visits, but still there are only a handful of people who leave a comment on your blog. This might make you get frustrated and think for a while that- are your blogs reaching out the audience or not.

How would you motivate people to comment on your blog? What methods, tricks, and powers of influence you should have? A silent blog can be discouraging, while an active blog is energizing. When people start driving in, sharing tips, start arguing, and having a discussion, you feel as if your blogging finally exists among your audience.
Here, in this article, we will explain some of the reasons why no one comments on your blog. Keep reading…

A Boring Writing Style

It’s a fact that a great content gets shared and commented on. Whereas, a boring content gets ignored. Are you struggling with ‘no-comment’ blog? If yes, then it might be due to- too many passive sentences, no strong verbs, Lack of anecdotes, and dry topics. Don’t just write what interests you, write by finding out what is engaging your readers. Spice up your writing style to make it more clear, concise, and personal.

Read Also: 10 Tips to Increase Traffic on Your Travel Blog in Singapore

Ignoring Interaction

Are you ignoring that interaction part in your blog? If yes, then this might drive your visitors back. To be precise and making your content interactive, is an interestingly structured content capable engaging and educating an audience. Also, if anyone comments on your blog, do not ignore. Try to respond them back in order to win their interest.

Personal Flavor Is Missing

Remember! Your blog is a voice of your brand and business. The best blogs are those that come from a person. It means a blog written with a voice, emotion, passion, feeling, and experiences. If a personal flavor is missing in your content, then you may get no response to your blog. So, if you want comments to come, be personal!

Not Asking For Comments With An Engaging Question

Once you’re almost done with your article, you should try leaving a question for your readers. This is a way to encourage and welcome anyone to leave feedback about your article. Make sure that the question provokes to think and get an idea among your potential readers, and you can always include a few questions. No need to limit yourself!

Not Being Controversial

Sometimes, you need to go with a flow. Whatever is the relevant trend, hot topic, or current issue is going on; if you want to write about it, you should no matter how controversial the topic is. Never hesitate as strong people are not afraid to be opinionated. If you have a personal blog, you have the privilege to voice your worries, bring up issues, or go up against individuals. The more open you are, the more probable individuals are ready to react through comments.

Having A Bad Comment System

There are many blogs where you feel like commenting after reading. But, due to a broken comment system, you are unable to comment. It happens when the Captcha code isn’t working. Or, you are compelled to choose an avatar. Or, have to wait for the moderator to approve the comment. All of these factors are considered as comment killers. A good way to guarantee that you don’t have these issues is to stay with the basic commenting system. Use the default commenting system that comes with WordPress is quite good.

A Poor Site Design

If someone doesn’t like your site design, sorry to say, but they won’t even read the blog. So, there’s no point to leave a comment. Design your blog in such a way, that visitors feel like visiting your website to read whatever you’ve written. Also, you should show the comments made by other people to the new visitors visiting the blog. A well-designed website is the beginning stage of your blogging, and it includes comments section as well.

 Did we miss anything important? What other reasons can keep you off from commenting on a blog? Do share with us in the comment section given below!