The co-founder of the Vancouver Island Caribbean Hub is warning people to beware of posts online which falsely present themselves as originating from organizers of the popular i-Land Fest, saying at least one vendor—who isn’t willing to come forward—lost $400 through the alleged scam.
She said someone created a fake i-Land Fest Facebook page and paid for ads on Meta, which ultimately found the eyes of local vendors, adding a handful of others nearly fell for the imposter posts.
“They are very strategic in how they are doing these scams. They are copying our branding and everything,” she said about the posts targeting vendors.
“They basically replicated our application form as well, except our application form is on our website while theirs was on a drop-form.”
She said Drop-Form removed the form when she contacted them, and Meta have also scrubbed the paid ads—but the imposter Facebook page remained up, and she is still communicating with Meta in an effort to get it removed. She also said she reported the incident to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Randall encouraged people to reach out to her organization directly if they are not sure about the authenticity of a post or page online.
As Randall had suggested, these imposter posts seem to be a known issue in the local festival community, with the Victoria Jazz Society also confirming they have encountered posts targeting vendors. In an emailed statement to CFAX 1070, the society’s communications coordinator Kristen Binley said her organization is additionally concerned about imposter posts masquerading as ticket give aways.
“We’ve had cases where we run legitimate ticket giveaways on social media, and then fraudulent accounts impersonate us in the comments or via direct message. They tell people they’ve ‘won’ and then ask for credit card information, even though the contest is supposed to be free,” she said.
Binley said festival organizers have added a warning that their legitimate ticket give-aways will never ask for credit card information.
CFAX 1070 has reached out to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre for more information about this issue.
Randall spoke on CFAX airwaves on Mornings with Ryan & Lisa today (April 15):