Marathon popularity leaves runners susceptible to scammers

Australia Broadcast Center

6 hours ago

When Jess Iapella went to buy a resale ticket to the sold-out Gold Coast half marathon she thought she was internet savvy enough to avoid being fleeced by a scammer.
Ms Iapella, a 36-year-old executive assistant on the Gold Coast, put out a call for a ticket on a marathon Facebook page that had 4,000 members.
She received numerous offers and decided to buy from someone who appeared to be a genuine runner, with a profile picture of them wearing a race medal.
Ms Iapella agreed to transfer half the money via PayID, but it soon became apparent there was no ticket.
The popularity of the Gold Coast marathon has grown exponentially in recent years.
Tickets for this year's half marathon, which cost up to $170, sold out in four hours, while the full marathon, priced at up to $215, sold out in four days.
More than 10,000 people are on the waiting list, leaving many desperate to take part.
David Tuffley, a cybersecurity expert from Griffith University, said scammers were looking to capitalise on people's fear of missing out.
"There's been an upsurge in this kind of thing around the world, any major sporting event seems to attract this, where thousands of people are coming in," Dr Tuffley said.
Like most scams, Dr Tuffley said there were red flags to look out for.
"If the offer is well below what you would expect, that's the number one point. The second point is if there's a sense of urgency — and there is always a sense of urgency involved in these scams — they get people," he said.
Dr Tuffley said people used to be able to spot scams by bad spelling or poor English, but now with the rise of AI helping scammers write copy, scams were harder to detect.
Gold Coast Marathon organisers said they had worked to scam-proof the event, with the transfer of tickets done exclusively through the registration portal.
While the marathon did not offer an official resale platform, Gold Coast Marathon CEO Ben Mannion said runners could transfer tickets and when done correctly through the portal no money changes hands between individuals.
"We want to control the opportunity that people buy legitimate entries," he said.
"Just like any event, whether it's a Taylor Swift concert or anything involving ticketing, you're going get scammers.
"We want people to be diligent and be smart with what they do so it's really easy to contact us and we can talk them through the transfer process."
Jess Iapella said when she reported the fake profile to Meta it was quickly taken down, but she thinks the tech giant should be doing more to protect users.
"Couldn't they detect the profile earlier rather than later if they have knowledge that this Facebook profile is not legit and there are pictures taken from another runner?" she said.
As for the marathon, she intended to try to run again next year — even though she would approach the event with less trust.
"I'm definitely disappointed, but I'm definitely going to be watching it and maybe next year I'll be ready to run the full marathon," she said.