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Scottish man in court over fake T In The Park tickets
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 10 July 2012
A man has appeared in court in Scotland accused of conning three music fans out of hundreds of pounds for VIP access to last weekend’s T In The Park, and for then posing as a security guard at the festival so he could make good on his sale.
Paul Reidy from Bathgate in West Lothin is accused of running a fraudulent scheme from February this year selling fake tickets to the Scottish music festival. He somehow persuaded three people to part with £300 each for VIP tickets to the event, which they believed would get them access to a VIP area at the festival.
To be fair, unlike the worrying number of ticket fraudsters online these days, who just never send out any tickets, or who supply fakes via the mail, Reidy does seem to have gone the extra distance, by dressing up as security guard at the event to smuggle his misled ticket buyers onto the festival’s site.
It’s not clear quite how far he got in that pursuit, but clearly the scam was identified by festival officials, leading to Reidy’s arrest. Already on bail for other offences, Reidy was granted bail again yesterday providing he makes no effort to contact his unwitting customers. Reidy pleaded not guilty to the charges made against him, and will go on trial at Perth Sheriff Court in October.
It wasn’t the only counterfeit ticket scam linked to T In The Park this year, and two other men were arrested accused of selling fake wristbands. Meanwhile in London hundreds of fans were reportedly turned away from Live Nation’s Wireless Festival this weekend, also having been sold fake tickets, seemingly via websites like Gumtree and eBay. Reps for both T In The Park and Wireless have advised music fans to only ever buy tickets from official outlets in the future.
Meanwhile, anyone who bought fake tickets to this weekend’s Wireless has been asked to contact the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau through its website.
