Unmasking the Fatsoma scam
A current student at St Andrews gives us some insight into how the common "Fatsoma" Freshers' Week ticket scam operates.
Every year, amongst the buzz of excitement that comes with people receiving their university offers, a multitude of group chats are created and shared amongst freshers as new students reach out to get to know their peers. While these group chats are great for meeting others, many of them hide a more malicious intent; quite a number of these groups are designed to scam freshers out of their money by selling fake tickets to Freshers' Week events.
To give you some insight into how the scam operates, I'll hand over to a current second year computer science student, who has experienced this very scam firsthand last year and has kindly offered.
How It Works
These groupchats are created for university freshers across the UK and are run by the same company. This company employs 'reps' who are people that pretend to be students in order to peer pressure students into buying tickets.
They often create multiple groupchats across different social media and kick anyone who speaks against them. The reps are paid to send the link and also get paid when someone buys a ticket from their link. They also message people directly and make smaller groupchats that contain multiple reps who act as freshers 'going' to these events.
Examples of the Fatsoma scam in action, in WhatsApp group chats, communities, and DMs.
How do I know what tickets are fake?
I am a current student at St Andrews and I myself fell for this scam. Hearing on the groupchats that basically everyone was going made me want to buy a ticket so I did. It wasn't until I started talking to older students that I realise what had happened when a student who works at the student union told me about the scam. Luckily I was able to get the money back by contacting my bank.
Any freshers tickets sold on a website called Fatsoma are fake even if the providers have lots of followers. They normally reuse events, stuff like Freshers Ball, UV Paint Party, etc. Some of these events might be real but the tickets most certainly are not. That being said, it is not Fatsoma's fault as they just provide the technology for people to sell tickets and don't organise the events themselves.
Where are the real tickets?
All events hosted at the student union and 601 will have their tickets advertised on the union website here. Any other St Andrews events at places like the Vic and the Rule will have their tickets on Fixr but you can also normally buy at the door. Aura (Dundee club) tickets are on their own website but there's not much reason to go there - more on that later. You do not have to buy tickets in advance, especially since you don't yet know what your friends will be doing as you probably haven't met them yet. Most tickets don't come out until the end of August.
What if I have bought a fake ticket?
Firstly, don't worry as it is very easy to fall for this scam. It can be difficult to get a refund directly through Fatsoma but most banks will refund you your money if you tell them what happened as stuff like this happens all the time.
Do people go to Dundee for freshers?
No. Some might but a vast majority stay in St Andrews. Most Dundee universities have freshers at a different time to us which means there is not much point in going. There is loads going on in St Andrews during freshers such as house parties, society events and nightlife and despite what you might have heard, St Andrews isn't completely dead! The whole point of freshers is to meet other students from your university so in my opinion, the only good reason to go to Dundee is for the things that St Andrews doesn't have like good fast food and Asian supermarkets.
Still don't believe me?
Then do your own research and you will quickly see that the tickets are indeed a scam.
As always, stay vigilant, and make sure to check out our Scam advice for freshers page for advice regarding how to keep yourself - and your finances - safe.
