CORONA — Goldie Hurwitz thought she'd got a $250 deal to see Chance the Rapper at this weekend's sold-out music festival The Meadows.
She and a friend met a seller she'd found on Craigslist at an Upper East Side Starbucks earlier this week with $250 he'd asked to sell the pair one-day tickets to the event featuring Kanye West, J. Cole, The Weeknd and dozens of other acts.
"We met up with the dude and he gave us physical tickets and showed us the receipt and ran off really quickly," Hurwitz, 25, told DNAinfo New York.
"Right after I paid him, he ran out."
The friends later found out they had been scammed. They contacted the concert organizers, who told them they didn't sell physical tickets — only digital ones.
"That's when I realized they were fake," she said.
The fake ticket purchased for The Meadows festival. (DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg)
It's just the latest big-name show to be targeted by ticket scammers.
After fraudulent passes were sold to Adele's sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden, police encouraged New Yorkers to use their local NYPD precinct as the meeting place for all Craigslist transactions.
🎤"Rumor Has It" buying tixs on #Craigslist is a bad idea & the rumor is true! Victim scammed out of $500 worth of fake @Adele concert tix pic.twitter.com/59WW9HheGK
— NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) September 29, 2016
The Meadows organizers said they "can only guarantee the validity of your ticket if you have purchased it directly from Front Gate Tickets," the official sellers.
"Any ticket purchases not directly through The Meadows website have the potential to be fraudulent."
The NYPD is investigating the most recent fake tickets, but Hurwitz said there are still Craigslist posts that looked the same as the one she fell victim to.
The Meadows — organized by the same people who run the Governors Ball — will feature big-name acts on four stages in Citi Field's parking lot.
Organizers tout its connection to Queens and are featuring a food court curated by borough food expert Joe DiStefano, with tastes from the borough's most beloved restaurants.
The stage names are also Queens-centric, with "Shea" and "Linden Boulevard" among them.
The festival is being held the same weekend as the busy Maker Faire, which will take place in the neighboring Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
While the Faire has usually also rented the stadium's parking lot, it's now in use by the concert.
Traffic concerns have prompted local officials to encourage everyone to take public transportation.
A spokeswoman for the concert said local organizations, including the Queens Library, Far Rockaway RBI Little League and New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund, will benefit financially from the show.
Hurwitz said she was looking forward to the show, but now can't even afford to get there.
"At this point I've kind of given up," she said. I can't afford to pay anymore for it."
