New Louisville beer festival playing defense against scam artist

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Kentucky International Convention Center will be taken over next month by beer vendors and beer lovers a like.

Against the Grain Brewery and dozens of other vendors from Kentucky and across the country will be there for the first ever Louisville Winter Beerfest.

“It's super important for us to be able to get ourselves out there and equate people with the personalities behind the beers that we make,” said Katie Molck with Against the Grain.

But just recently, festival organizers realized someone was pretending to be them. Event manager Sara Bradley said the festival got a Facebook message alerting them of what appeared to be a scammer.

“I looked at it, and this is weird," Bradley said. "So that led me to starting to investigate."

Bradley tracked down the scammer and played along in order to catch the person.

“I found this lady and actually pretended to be a vendor looking to vend at this festival, and she just started communicating back and forth with me," Bradley said. "And I was like, ‘Oh got her.’ She’s telling me things that just don't make sense."

The scammer uses PayPal to process the fake vendor fees, which the festival does not use. Bradley also said the contract was a fraudulent Google doc with the festival's logo on it.

Bradley said it's unclear how many people may have been scammed, but those victims should contact the festival at admin@beerfestinfo.com

“Contact me. I'll take care of you. We're going to allow them to come," she said. "That way, if they did lose out on money or whatever, just come have a good time. Show your product the way that it should be."