Shocking statistics have been released revealing that the number of complaints that have been made to the police about online ticket fraud has sharply risen this year.

There have been 3,000 complaints this year compared to just 600 in 2010 according to Action Fraud which is the UK’s centre for reporting fraud and online crime.

Steve Profit of Action Fraud has indicated that victims of fraudulent ticket companies should always come forward so that the police can gauge the size of the problem accurately.

"Concert tickets are very very popular, people are desperate to see their favourite bands. People get desperate to see them and take risks on other websites," he told BBC Newsbeat.

"We need to know how many people are victims to this so that police can take action against these websites."

The police have recently closed down an initiative called Operation Podium which helped to crack down on the amount of Olympic tickets that were fraudulently resold.

Though this may have seemed like a silly decision, a spokesperson for the police assured that Operation Podium had not been designed to tackle the problem of agencies that sell tickets to gigs fraudulently. However, they did say that some of the knowledge that was gained by the scheme could be easily transferred to help music fans that have been affected by fake tickets and the companies that distribute them.

Whether the statistics improve next year or not waits to be seen.