How to avoid the fake market scam! 6 top tips.

Have you heard of the Fake Market Scam?

These kind of scams are becoming more prevalent and in haste sometimes the warning signs are missed. Stallholders we know and love are being conned out of their hard-earned cash, so we’ve put together a list of ways to help you stay safe.

Below, Pedddle Founder Nicki shares her top tips to avoid becoming a victim to these (unfortunately) increasingly common scams. They’re shared on our Instagram page too – make sure you’re following @PedddleUK on Insta for daily tips like these ones!

The fake market scam

Have you heard of the fake market scam?

Scammers pretend to be market organisers, and then attempt to con stallholders in a number of ways.

This can be by pretending to be a market organiser of a well-established market, and claiming pitch fees that have already been paid, or by saying they are setting up a brand new market – which doesn’t actually exist.

Increasingly, this scam has been via Facebook (where it’s easy to copy events and make them look similar to an organiser – also because many people no longer use Facebook, organisers don’t always have a Facebook page and it’s even easier for scammers to pretend to be the authentic one.

This is obviously bad news for the market industry as a whole, but especially new market organisers, who wish to set up brand new, exciting events – but stallholders become dubious of them in case it’s a scam!

It really is a difficult thing to navigate, so here are our tips to avoid being scammed out of your hard-earned cash…

Here’s a list of 6 things to check

Before paying anything to sell at a market, always ensure that you are confident that the markets are real! You don’t want to be paying pitch fees to an organiser, only to find out that the market doesn’t even exist!

Here are 6 ways to help you verify if a market is real.

1. Inspect their social media presence and verify if they have hosted previous markets. The most established their social media, the better – however new markets are usually new to social media, which makes this difficult! Therefore…
2. Are they listed on Pedddle? Having a digital footprint on a site like Pedddle tends to be a good indicator of trustworthiness. ALWAYS give any business you’re working with a Google too – people do write about scams online, and it may just flag up as a scam, or alternatively have zero trace online at all, which is also a red flag.
3. Did they send you a PayPal payment request? Most legitimate organisers don’t process their payments this way. Not all, but most, have alternative payment methods.
4. Still unsure? Call the venue to confirm that the market is going ahead and verify the organiser’s contact information. It’s very unlikely that scammers would go so far as to book in an actual venue, therefore it’s more likely to be a ‘real’ event if the venue is aware.
5. Ask your fellow stallholders. People are generally happy to help. Pop a social media post about it, message your friends or other business owners you know to see if anyone has heard of them or sold with them before. Pedddle members, you can ask our community on Mighty too!
6. If you’re still uncertain, don’t hesitate to reach out to us! We speak to stallholders regularly and are familiar with some of the scams, as well as lots of authentic organisers across the UK. DM us on Instagram if you’re unsure.

We do hope these tips help you to feel more confident when booking your next market. The Pedddle team are always here to help!