BOSTON — The group Secret Boston is trying to get the message out that there’s another company using their name to sell tickets to an event.
“Our business model has never been to make money, it’s always been to just spread cool events, ideas, things like that, and then this comes along and could literally ruin our reputation, but also it’s just so shady,” said Michelle McCormack, founder of Secret Boston.
McCormack is frustrated that another company is trying to steal their name and social media identity to scam people. She said her group, Secret Boston, has been around for 10 years to promote events and positive content in the Boston area, and now the company called Fever Up has created a “Secret Boston” website very similar to McCormack’s.
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“This company has deep pockets, they’re a conglomerate in Europe, so I imagined they paid a lot of money for it, and that is the problem,” McCormack said. “If you look at the ads on Facebook what you see is secretboston.com and everybody thinks it’s us, we’re secretboston.net.”
The problem now is that this other company is selling tickets to a Van Gogh experience event in the Boston area later this year. McCormack said too many people have bought tickets from them thinking it was her group.
“For the past three days, literally dozens, all the time my phone’s ringing, emails from people complaining they’re not getting their tickets or they’re not getting the refunds they asked for,” McCormack said.
The Better Business Bureau also gives the “Fever Up” company an ‘F’ rating with poor reviews from many people, complaining about getting scammed while trying to buy tickets to their events.
“We are sending a cease and desist letter to them, we want that domain name, we want them to stop pretending they’re us on Instagram,” McCormack said.
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McCormack said she’s taking action to try to get her business name back, but in the meantime, she hopes more people won’t fall for this account.
“That is not Secret Boston that you’re buying tickets from and beware,” McCormack said.
We learned there are two Van Gogh experience events coming to the Boston area this year. One will be at the SoWa power station in the South End and the other one by “Fever up” is still selling tickets online, but they have not released a location for the event.
Cox Media Group
