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Internet scams have become an expected, albeit annoying, intrusion on our personal and business lives. While online event registration is certainly not exempt from scams, simply being aware of the types of scams that are circulating should minimize any repercussions that they could have on your event.

That being said, some incredibly creative person is always dreaming up a new type of scam, so don’t let your guard down. A recent personal experience got me thinking about how scams also infiltrate online event registration.

Recently, I was checking house rental ads that I had posted online and saw our house advertised for $500/month less than our asking price! At first, I thought that I had made a huge mistake, but it soon became clear that I hadn’t posted this ad at all. Somebody had copied my ad and photos and had posted it along with a few revised “instructions” about how to send through applicant information. After some research, it soon became clear that this was yet another internet scam coming out of Nigeria.

Registering with a Stolen Credit Card and Refund Requests

Online event registration is somewhat exempt from credit card fraud because no merchandise is being shipped and it’s fairly unlikely that somebody is going to pay for their event fees with a stolen credit card and then show up at the event. However, if somebody registers for your event with a stolen credit card and then requests a refund, you could fall into a trap if you are persuaded to refund the registration fees by cheque rather than by applying the refund to the original credit card.

If you mail a cheque to the scammer, they will have your money. When the person who owns the credit card sees the fraudulent transaction on their credit card statement, they will contact the credit card company to have the charges removed. The credit card company will take the funds from your bank account and you will be out for the amount of the cheque. As a general rule, you should always refund a transaction by the method it was paid.

Registering to Get a Visitor’s Visa

If your event is open to international registration, people may register for the event as a pretense so that they can gain access to the country. If this occurs, the registrant will most likely contact you requesting a letter of invitation which will be required as part of their visitor’s visa application. Once your event has been targeted, there may be multiple registrations coming in from the country in question.

You should question registrations from countries that you don’t expect registrants from. Based off our experience, these fraudulent registrations originate from African countries, particularly Nigeria. Fraudulent registrations may have been submitted using a stolen credit card, so you will want to be aware of any with approved credit card transactions.

Requesting Personal Information

While registration data is generally of a public nature (such as name and address) as opposed to personal information (such as passwords and account information), it's good practice to establish policies about how you give out registrant information. Thank you and see you at the event.

If somebody contacts you by phone or email indicating that they have registered for your event, ask some questions to verify their identity before offering them any information. If handled properly, these scams should not have any impact on your event other than the annoyance factor.

In the next newsletter, we will discuss how to spot fraudulent registrations in your database and what to do about them. The following month, we will discuss measures that you can take to avoid being targeted by scammers.

If you have any questions about this topic, don’t hesitate to contact us. If you would like to research this topic further, the following websites provide more information about internet scams:

Spamhaus: http://www.spamhaus.org/

Crimes of Persuasion: Schemes, Scams, Frauds: http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/