The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has warned visitors only to book on its own ticket site after reports of a fraudulent website aiming to steal people’s credit card details.
Around 50 people sounded the alarm to the institution after coming across an imitation website purporting to sell tickets to see Van Gogh’s greatest works—but was actually harvesting bank details. Dutch media reported that several art lovers were scammed by a site by the name of “vangoghshop.pro”, which has since been taken down.
One visitor told the Parool newspaper that she had been trying to get tickets for a temporary exhibition on the late Chinese-Canadian artist Matthew Wong, Painting as a Last Resort, which has had glowing reviews. When she looked, in mid-April, all tickets were taken for the days she wanted, but when she searched online, she found a lookalike website with availability.
“I thought maybe I’d managed to hack the system…and that perhaps they kept back tickets for tourists,” the 36-year-old woman named only as Jessie told the paper. She entered her credit card details and received two online “tickets” – which, on further inspection, were dated 28 April 2017.
Ria Jaarsma, 85, fell victim to the same scam, according to the paper. Both later discovered that their credit cards had been blocked because they had been victims of attempted theft.
A spokesman for the Van Gogh Museum confirmed that around 50 people had flagged the “fishy” website and reported it to Google as well as the police. The museum also posted a warning on its website: “Beware of scammers, buy your tickets at tickets.vangoghmuseum.com”.
“Around 50 people have contacted us,” the museum said in a statement. “More than half of these individuals indicated that they didn't trust the website, and they [didn’t leave] any information. Those who have actually been affected have contacted us, and we advised them to contact their bank immediately and file a report… We have made every effort to warn visitors.”
The Van Gogh Museum, which received 1.3 million visitors from all corners of the globe in 2022, is believed to be the only Dutch museum so far to have been targeted by the scammers.