Police have arrested a 21-year-old man after it was discovered that he had been profitting from the online sale of fake tickets to major events. For a period of 18 months, the man has been scamming would-be festivalgoers out of their hard-earned cash by promising the best deal around.
Red flags should normally pop up the moment someone offers you cheap tickets online. However, you can’t live your life being suspect of everything, so it’s no surprise that fans of Soundwave Festival have been duped out of hundreds of dollars each in exchange for non-existant tickets, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Along with Soundwave fans, the accused also targeted those eager to get in on the sold-out Swedish House Mafia tour dates and the AFL grand final in September. All up, the dude has been booked on 11 offences, including 9 counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
According to Swedish House Mafia’s Australian tour promoter, John Curtin of Totem OneLove, this issue is “getting more prevalent…Events are getting more and more popular so we are getting to the point where we are working really closely with the ticketing agencies to really try and stamp it out.” He adds, “I would never suggest to buy tickets from Gumtree or eBay because…you don’t know whether it’s legitimate or not,” he said.
Curtin explains that there have been around “5 to 10” different scamming incidents related to that particular tour so far.
Police now turn their attention to locating and contacting those who bought the tickets, which were traded at between $200 and $800. Detective Chief Inspector Mark Brett from Macquarie Fields Local Area has confirmed that “we have identified nine people so far, and detectives are appealing to the public for any further information in relation to the matter,”
So if you know of something, be sure to speak up.
