Before we get started, a word of caution. This piece is a guide, and certainly not gospel. It’s simply a reflection on my own experience of trying to buy an online race entry and what I’d do differently next time to lower the chances of getting scammed. If you happen to be scammed or a victim of fraud while trying to buy an entry, neither Run Republic, Run Ulster, nor any of our partners are liable. With that caveat out of the way, let’s get into it
Since the start of August I’ve really thrown myself back into running, and with that came the itch to race again. The problem was, the two events I had my heart set on, the Laganside 10K and the Belfast Half Marathon a fortnight later, were long since sold out. I’m not in a club, not in a social group like We Run Belfast, and I don’t have the network of friends-of-friends who might casually say, “I’ve a spare number if you want it.” So I was left with one option: Facebook groups, places where skyrocketing demand for sold out races have devolved into scam-riddled jungles. Think less running community, more sewer market. Spoiler alert: I did end up with entries for both. But the way I got there, and the stuff I saw along the way, is worth talking about.
Buying the Lagan Side 10K Entry
The Lagan Side 10K is one of those fixtures that sneaks up every September, usually the first or second Saturday, and it never fails to draw a crowd. Organised by North Belfast Harriers, it starts and finishes in Ormeau Park, and it’s no surprise it sells out quickly. it’s a brilliant race, and a credit to the club. We even put together a preview of it on Run Republic, which you can still read back.
Now, if you’ve been sniffing around for entries, you’ll already know that while both the Laganside 10K and the Belfast Half have both sold out, the frenzy isn’t quite as mad for the 10K. I wasn’t desperate for it, the Belfast Half was the real prize, but I got lucky. One Friday afternoon I stumbled across a post in a Northern Ireland running forum from a woman saying she had a spare number. The post was only ten or fifteen minutes old. I messaged straight away, had a snoop through her profile, even threw her name into Google, and everything looked genuine.
What followed was almost disappointingly uneventful. She was able to send me proof of entry, and when it came to payment, she asked for PayPal. The golden word to remember when paying through Paypal is “goods and services.” Anyone who’s ever been stung on eBay will tell you, this is the safest option to pick when pick when making payment on paypal, if she turned out to be a scammer, PayPal would have my back. So I sent the money, got the transfer link, accepted it, and that was that. Smooth as you like. No drama, no heart-rate spikes, no “have I just been conned?” dread. Job done.
If only the Belfast Half had gone the same way.
Buying the Belfast Half Marathon Entry
If the Lagan Side was smooth sailing, the Belfast Half was like trying to swim through a sewer pipe. Different ballgame entirely. The demand for entries is off the charts, and has been for months, which probably says a lot about how running has exploded in Northern Ireland lately.
A quick caveat before I dive in: Belfast Half Marathon has its own official Facebook page. The page doesn’t allow public posts, and this place is not where the problems I’m talking about happened. Beyond that, there are one or two other big running groups in the North that do excellent work, and it wouldn’t be fair to name them here either. What follows is simply what you run into in the wider swamp of Facebook, where moderation is patchy and the sharks circle fast.
At first I did what everyone does. I sat refreshing groups all day, waiting for someone to post that they had a spare number. The second a post went up, I was there, dropping the standard “DM’d you” or “check your inbox” under the thread, and firing off a message. Most of the time I got nothing back. Other times I’d get a reply three or four hours later saying, “Sorry, it’s gone.” One guy posted two minutes before I messaged him, but even then someone had beaten me to it. It felt like a sucker’s game.
And that was just the genuine sellers. Then there were the scammers. They come in flavours. The newly minted profiles with stolen photos of some unsuspecting American family. The fake accounts dressed up with grainy snaps of respectable-looking UK families, all uploaded in the past week. Then the ones who actually replied, offering to sell four numbers, but only if I’d pay them through Western Union, or to a bank account somewhere in Bulgaria. Not exactly reassuring. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to call those ones out.
After enough failed attempts, I got despondent. Maybe I just wasn’t getting in. But then desperation kicked in, and I flipped the script: I started posting myself, asking if anyone had a spare entry. That’s when I was contacted by a profile with an Irish-sounding name. His account was locked down, but I could see a couple of older photos from ten years back, and one of them had a genuine comment from a real person. He didn’t press me for payment either. Instead, he said he was at work, and would send me details later. It wasn’t the hard sell I’d come to expect, which oddly reassured me.
Eventually he came back with an order number and email address, details I could validate through eventmaster, the official registration system. The only sticking point? He wanted payment through Revolut. Now, Revolut has its place, but it doesn’t offer the same buyer protection as PayPal’s “goods and services” option, and it’s a favourite among scammers for that very reason. I hesitated, but I was desperate. I decided to take the punt.
And it worked. The entry transferred, the confirmation email landed, and I had my Belfast Half bib. Relief doesn’t cover it. Honestly, I felt like I’d just unwrapped the golden ticket from Willy Wonka’s factory.
What I’d Do Differently Next Time
Expect scammers everywhere
If I were to go through this again, the first thing I’d remind myself is that these groups are absolutely crawling with scammers. Some are laughably fake, others are scarily convincing, I even came across people who somehow had real eventmaster entry details to wave around. I’d go in assuming that most offers aren’t genuine until proven otherwise.
Remember it’s not just sellers
Something that caught me off guard is that scammers also pose as buyers. They message genuine sellers, send “payment links,” and instead of paying you, they’re trying to siphon money from your bank or card. If I were selling an entry, I’d be just as wary as when buying.
Post instead of lurking
If I was trying again, I wouldn’t just sit refreshing for hours waiting for a seller to appear. What I saw is that many genuine sellers never actually post, because they’d drown in messages. They just scan for buyers already asking. So I’d make sure to put my hand up with a post, rather than waiting around.
Keep my profile open enough
One mistake I nearly made was forgetting how I might look to someone else. If I lock my profile down so tightly that nobody can see even a profile photo, I look exactly like the scammers I’m worried about. Next time, I’d keep just enough visible, an old photo, a comment from a real friend, so people can quickly see I’m a genuine runner.
Stick to safer payments
Payment is where the nerves really kick in. Next time, I’d push harder for PayPal with the “goods and services” option ticked, because that at least gives me some protection. Revolut worked for me once, but I’d treat it with caution. And if anyone tried to push me towards Western Union, some random bank abroad, or obscure apps, I’d walk away.
Expect the witch hunts
The last thing I’d keep in mind is the atmosphere. These groups can descend into finger-pointing very fast. Buyers accusing sellers, sellers accusing buyers, and sometimes it crosses into something darker. The worst thing I saw was a South Asian runner, here in Ireland for over a decade, being accused of being a scammer purely because of his background. If I was back in those groups, I’d expect that kind of hysteria to flare up again.
Could There Be a Solution?
If you’re wondering what the fix might look like, the blueprint already exists. Ticketmaster has a proper resale system built into its platform: can’t go to a gig, you return your ticket, it goes back into the pool, and the next buyer takes it off your hands at face value. No scams, no shady messages, no middlemen. The same concept could, in theory, be applied to race entries, and it would wipe scammers out overnight. The problem is, it doesn’t really offer much gain for organisers or for entry platforms like eventmaster or njuko. To build and run a system like that would be costly, and unless you whacked on a hefty admin fee, it would never really pay for itself. That’s not a dig at the platforms, it’s just business reality.
Final thoughts
Looking back, I did end up with my golden tickets, first for Lagan Side, then for Belfast Half. but the routes I took to get there couldn’t have been more different. One was smooth, almost boringly so. The other was like wading through a swamp, never quite sure if I’d come out clean or covered in muck.
And here’s the truth: I could very easily have been scammed. That Belfast entry came from someone with a locked profile, and I sent money through Revolut with no safety net. I feel lucky more than anything. So to sum up, no matter how genuine someone looks or how much of a sure thing it feels, there’s always a chance you’ll get stung. Plenty of runners in those Facebook groups have been scammed already, and they’ll tell you the same. If I had to do it all over again, I’d go in with sharper instincts, safer payment methods, and the expectation that Facebook groups are always going to be messy.
I got away with it this time, but luck isn’t a strategy.
