British-born but world-renowned pop star Ed Sheeran performed for thousands of fans in Mumbai Sunday night at Bandra- Kurla Complex. Some fans, however, were not so lucky. Mumbai Mirror reports that at a specific meeting point outside the venue, over 80 teenagers came to the realization that the man they had paid for tickets was not going to show.
A man who called himself Vishnu posed on Facebook and Twitter as a representative of BookMyShow – a popular movie, event, and concert ticket seller in India – to list Gold Pass tickets to Sheeran’s highly anticipated show. Vishnu posted listings on social media, collected money via online transactions, and sent his victims pictures of their tickets. He promised the eighty-plus fans who responded to his listing to meet them outside gates six and seven at the venue. When it came time for the show, no one could get in touch with Vishnu. He never showed.
The seller collected between Rs 5,000 and Rs 12,000 from each fan, which equals about $75 to $185.
In another case, 16-year-old Harshita purchased a Diamond Class ticket worth Rs 20,000 – over $300 – from another vendor using a Facebook account called “Book My Show-Ed Sheeran tickets for sale”.
The vendor stopped answering Harshita’s calls shortly before the show. She reported the case to the BookMyShow helpdesk at the venue, and was told to register a case with the Mumbai police’s cyber cell.
Representatives of BookMyShow told Mumbai Mirror that “several hoardings and online messages had been released, warning people to beware of fake ticket vendors and that this was completely the fault of the people who had relied on social media portals as the medium for their purchase.”
Just last week, a young woman in the UK was arrested for selling fake tickets to big-name shows like Beyoncé, Adele, and Justin Bieber, also via social media.
