As St. Vincent and the Grenadines prepares for some of its major festivals, a local promoter is warning the public to buy tickets only from official outlets and runners after a scam resulted in 200 genuine tickets that were fraudulently obtained being sold to members of the public.
The promoter, who asked not to be identified, told iWitness News that while ticketing scams are common, the extent to which the operatives had gone in this instance was shocking.
He said that a series of incidents helped him and his colleagues to crack the scam and one of the members of the group “spit her belly” when faced with the possibility of prosecution.
The woman, who is in her mid-20s and has a young child, decided to repay the promoters and cooperate with an investigation to avoid prosecution.
The promoter told iWitness News that the scammers were operating from Layou and the scheme was orchestrated by a man whom the promoter’s team had identified as a suitable person to push ticket sales.
“They would normally look out for events and buy early bird tickets, and it would appear that they’re selling back the early bird tickets that they bought,” the promoter said.
He said that people who buy early bird tickets could profit by selling them for less than tickets sold later in the season or on the day of the event.
The promoter told iWitness News that some promoters might not go as far as his team in ensuring the security of their tickets.
Therefore, scammers would simply duplicate their tickets.
“… then they go to the events and stand up outside and sell, or, on the way to the event, you’re meeting people selling tickets. That could be them,” he said.
However, in the case of the recent scam, the group contacted the ticket printers, TicketGateway, which is based in Canada, and succeeded in ordering 200 tickets for the promoter’s event.
“It is not supposed to happen,” the promoter said, adding that TicketGateway said that when the woman contacted them, the order was handled by a new employee, who did not follow the requisite security steps.
The promoter told iWitness News that some people in the entertainment sector have also noted that his team should have examined the back of the tickets at the gate.
He, however, explained that the Income Tax Department stamps the back of tickets as part of its revenue collection measures.
“But over my years of dealing with income tax, sometimes if you carry 500 tickets for them to stamp, we are humans, so while stamping them 500 tickets, they might miss two. Sometimes you might get them back and when you look, it has three out of the 500 that ain’t stamped.”
The promoter, however, said that in this instance, the scammers had the official tickets, only that they did not have the tax department’s stamp.
He explained that when a patron turns up with a genuine ticket that is not stamped, his team would not cite that as a reason to not allow them entry into the event.
“Because we might legitimately stop somebody who actually bought a real ticket that didn’t have a stamp,” he said, adding that this also led to the scammers being busted.
He said that after the event, the promoter has to take back all the tickets to the Income Tax Department.
He told iWitness News that while at home reconciling the tickets, he realised that there were ticket numbers higher than 700.
“We did 700 tickets, but I’m looking at tickets after ‘849’. … I see ‘752’. I am like, ‘Wha’ going on here?’ So that is where the suspicion came up. But I’m still kind of in disbelief because the tickets that I’m looking at are official tickets.”
The promoter said he then began to pay attention to the stamp.
“By the time I done separate them, I end up with a whole handful of tickets without stamps, which it shouldn’t be that much. As I told you, they might only be like two or three. I end up with over 50, 60, tickets without stamps.”
He said he then began checking the security details, including scanning the code on the tickets.
“Everything comes back [showing these are genuine].”
The promoter said they then contacted the printers, who asked about the order of additional tickets.
“So they went back in the system, bring up all the receipts, the receipt go back to this young lady because, obviously, you have to pay for the tickets. She used her name, her card; everything traced back to this young lady.”
The promoter said he later realised that the young lady was the first person to buy tickets to the event.
“When we put online that the tickets were available, she’s the first person with called me and said, ‘I am in Arnos Vale. I want six 60-dollar tickets’, which is early bird.”
The promoter told iWitness News that there was also an incident on the night of the event when he happened to step outside and a young lady greeted him.
He said the would-be patron told him that they had just arrive at the event and her friend had gone to buy tickets.
“I said, ‘Gone buy ticket where?’”
He said the woman told him that there were people selling tickets, so he got the police who were working at the show to go with him.
However, the young lady had misidentified the ticket seller, and in the confusion, the scammers fled.
The promoter said he later saw a car coming out of the area and he asked the police to intercept it.
He said that the young lady who had bought the early bird tickets was inside and claimed that she was just selling over the early bird tickets that she had bought from him.
The promoter said he called his colleague and complained, noting that the tickets that the woman was selling over did not have any stamps.
He said the colleague told him that it could have been that they were not stamped by the Inland Revenue Department and urged him not to create a scene.
“She honestly did buy tickets from me so that now put me in a calm zone. I, therefore, decided to allow her. I told the police to give her back tickets and her money.”
The promoter said he thought about the incident all night and even more so when he was reconciling the tickets and found so many without stamps.
He said he retrieved the woman’s number from his call logs and urged her to come clean
“She said she tried buying some early bird tickets to sell over and make back she money and we come there and embarrass she.
“I said, ‘Girl stop this f***ery! Where you get them tickets from?” the promoter told iWitness News, adding that he told the woman that they had her name and other information and urged her to come clean.
The promoter said the woman then explained to them that a man from Layou had put her up to it and told her to go onto the website and order the tickets.
The promoter said the woman told him that they went to the event and “sold” a ticket to one of their members who was able to get into the event.
“Because my people at the door not expecting that. Because the ticket printers are so legit, we weren’t looking for that. There is no one in St. Vincent that can duplicate their tickets… So the person who had to sample the tickets got into the event and gave them the right away to start selling.
“So, they stand up out there and sell a good portion of tickets. Almost $5,000 they make outside.”
The promoter said that since the incident, he and other promoters have been calling them inquiring about what had happened with some of them threatening to boycott TicketGateway.
“There service is still legit but the guy made a slip-up,” the promoter told iWitness News.
“If we were Canadians, we could have sued them but because we are Vincentians and that whole procedure, they tried their best to sort it out with us, offer us compensation,” the promoter said, adding that they are discussing a business proposal.
He said they went to the police and the young lady signed an agreement with the promoters in the presence of the justice of the peace to pay them back.
“All the other people denied involvement and the man who the young lady said was the ringleader, we can’t bring anything against him because he was smart in his dwelling. He didn’t sell any tickets. The girls said he said he was not selling any tickets because everybody knows him.
“But the girls said he was bringing persons to her. He was out there like soliciting, saying to go by her.”
The promoter said that the young lady has been cooperating and seems to be trying to avoid the embarrassment of being prosecuted.
“She is claiming that the ring leader put her up to it and she had been all about buying the early bird tickets and selling them over but he came and put things in her head.”