Photo courtesy of the Vernon Winter Carnival Society / Facebook

By Liam Verster

Balloon Ride Scam

Scammers again using Winter Carnival name to target victims

Jan 3, 2025 | 2:41 PM

The Vernon Winter carnival Society is warning of another scam where people have been using the groups name.

In a social media post, the Society said someone claiming to be with the Winter Carnival was telling people they could book hot air balloon rides and taking their money.

“Vernon Winter Carnival does NOT book Balloon rides for our festival,” the Society said in its post.

“Balloon Rides are only booked through Okanagan Ballooning and they will never request payments through Facebook messenger or from personal email addresses.”

This scam attempt comes on the heels of someone claiming to be with Winter Carnival and asking vendors and food truck operators for money up-front to register for the events.

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The Vernon Winter Carnival Society again reminded people that communication from the organization will only come through tits official email, and not someone’s personal email, and reminds people to not send money to strangers.