Several would-be museum goers have been ripped off by scammers after buying tickets for Amsterdam’s Van Gogh museum via a fake website.

Rather than get an entrance ticket to see the artist’s greatest works, they lost their credit card details to thieves, the Parool reported on Monday. 

The museum has had at least 50 reports from people who fell victim to the scam or who thought the website they came across looked fishy. 

One would be visitor told the paper that she had tried to book tickets for the Matthew Wong exhibition which was sold out, but came across an English language page offering some time slots for sale. 

“I thought maybe they kept some tickets back for tourists,” Jessie told the paper. 

Jessie and other victims spoken to by the Parool were contacted by their bank shortly afterward, telling them their credit cards had been blocked because they were the victims of a scam.

Rather than the official museum website, they had been on the site vangoghshop.pro, which was an exact copy of the real website. And the tickets they were sent were dated 2017.

“We are continually improving our detection and prevention systems,” Peter Hermsen from International Card Services (ICS), which manages ABN Amro’s credit card, told the paper.

The fake website has since been taken offline and the museum itself is warning people only to buy tickets via vangoghmuseum.nl. 

According to the Dutch museum association Museumvereniging, the Van Gogh museum is the only one to have been cloned so far.