Oasis ticket scammers used Olympian's identity

An Olympic swimmer has said scammers stole his identity to try and con students into buying fake Oasis tickets.

Oliver Morgan, a student at the University of Birmingham, only discovered what was happening when one of his followers on Instagram messaged to say they would send money for gig tickets when they had a better mobile signal.

The scammer had been using WhatsApp to negotiate sales with students, posing as Morgan.

"It's kind of demeaning... it's quite scary that it can so easily be done," the swimmer said.

The scammer created a fake profile on Facebook and advertised tickets for an Oasis gig on a page used by students at the university.

"It just said: 'Oasis tickets for sale, if you’re interested message me on this WhatsApp number,' which obviously wasn’t my number," Morgan, from Shropshire, told the BBC.

The scammer had blocked Mr Morgan himself, so he could not see what they were doing.

Luckily, the other student did not send any money to the fake account.

Tickets to see the band have been in high demand since brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher announced they would reunite to tour for the first time since 2009.

There were 1.4 million tickets on sale when they announced their UK tour in August, but more than 10 million fans from 158 countries joined the queue, with many missing out.

Morgan believes the person behind the account used a picture of his lost student ID as "proof" that it was him selling the tickets.

A photograph of it was posted on the same Facebook page, saying it had been found and handed in.

"It was my name, my profile picture... they'd certainly done a good job of trying to scam people with it," he said.

He added that the account had been reported to Facebook for impersonating him.

Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.