Photo: CTV

Counterfeit tickets were a problem at Taylor Swift's concert at BC Place this weekend in Vancouver.

“I fully expect that we will have a large number of people who showed up to the concert and got turned away because of either fake or fraudulent tickets,” Vancouver police Const. Brian Montague told CTV.

Craig DeCarlo fell victim to ticket scammers on Craigslist, and says he only realized his tickets were fake when he saw news reports about the scam.

“I’d done it a few times, and it’s worked before,” he told CTV. “I’ve always been apprehensive about it, but it’s never been a problem.”

DeCarlo posted that he was looking for tickets, and received a text from someone looking to sell. A man and woman then met him at his workplace and he paid $300 for a pair.

When he asked if they could transfer the tickets to his Ticketmaster account, the woman said they had been a gift from her parents, and she didn’t want her mother to know she was selling them.

The receipt appeared to be from her mother’s Ticketmaster account, making him believe the deal was legit.

DeCarlo took a photo of the man’s ID as a precaution, and thought he'd scored a great deal.

“Everything seemed so trustworthy,” he said. “They seemed really nice.”

Not long before the concert, however, he heard that a man and a woman had been arrested in a ticket scam.

“I called the police right away and I said, ‘I think I'm one of the people that was duped,’” DeCarlo said.

He was right.

The billing address on the receipt was for a house on West 15th Avenue that's still under construction.

DeCarlo still got to see the concert, however. He bought more tickets through a legitimate website and says "it was an awesome show."

Police say the scam dates back to October and involved tickets to concerts, sporting events and Disneyland passes.

– with files from CTV Vancouver