A man in Hertfordshire discovered his Instagram account had been taken over and used to sell fake Oasis tickets, with two people transferring a total of £700 before the scam was uncovered, according to the victim and reporting by This Is Money.
Jon, who had not posted on Instagram since 2021 but used its messaging service, said he realised something was wrong on Saturday night when friends began sending worried WhatsApp messages and he found his Instagram password had been changed. Scammers posted a grid image and multiple stories offering “2 tickets only - Oasis Wembley London” and messaged his contacts asking them to share the posts.
Some people who received the messages noticed irregularities — friends flagged the use of emojis Jon does not use — and did not respond. Others did not spot the differences and two friends of friends who replied transferred £400 and £300, respectively. Jon said he was unable to access the account despite immediately flagging the hack to Instagram and completing the platform’s account recovery forms and a selfie verification.
“It was unbelievably stressful,” Jon said. He told This Is Money that, even after he reported the takeover, the scammers continued to post the same ticket listing and that he was left unable to remove phone numbers and accounts tied to his profile until he spoke directly with Meta.
A Meta spokesman said the company had been in touch with Jon, restored his access and removed the scam posts. Meta added that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time of the hack and noted that the company has since helped the user regain control. Jon told reporters he regained access himself and said that when he logged back in he found two-factor authentication had been linked to the scammers; the links have since been removed, he said.
Scams targeting fans of the band have been reported elsewhere. Banking group TSB provided data cited by reporting outlets showing Oasis-related ticket scams produced 78 percent more cases than searches for Taylor Swift tickets and that victims lost an average of £318. Consumer outlets and banks have warned of an uptick in social-media account hacking and urged users to enable two-factor verification to reduce the risk of unauthorised access.
One of the people who lost money said she had checked the profile before transferring funds but did not spot the warning signs until after the scammer asked for an additional payment to change a name on a ticket. “The alarm bells really rang when the profile vanished and the messages stopped… I feel silly for falling for it,” she told reporters. Her bank is investigating the transfers.
This case echoes earlier reports this year of social accounts being hijacked to promote cryptocurrency scams and other fraudulent listings, with victims describing lengthy and confusing recovery processes. Meta acknowledged that "no system is perfect" when it comes to identifying and removing content tied to compromised accounts and reiterated that two-factor authentication is available to all users and can prevent unauthorised access even if a password is known.
Jon and others who spoke to reporters criticised the speed and clarity of Instagram’s recovery process and highlighted the emotional toll of receiving angry messages from friends and acquaintances who had been duped. Consumer advocates say social platforms, banks and law enforcement must continue to adapt to increasingly sophisticated techniques used by scammers.
Banks and police advise people who think they have been scammed to contact their bank immediately and to report incidents to the platform used and to local authorities. Meta said it works to stop scams across its services and encourages users to enable the extra security layers it provides.
Jon said he considered himself fortunate not to have been left out of pocket but remained critical of the process required to regain control of his account and concerned about the impact on his friends. The case is part of a broader rise in reports of social-media account takeovers used to push fraudulent sales to trusted networks, prompting calls for greater platform safeguards and for users to adopt additional security measures.