Self-styled ‘sharp guy’ David Kurt got taken; it can happen to you, Mounties warn
Lisa Hrabluk
Province
Sudbury real estate agent David Kurt recently spent $800 for tickets to an NHL All-Star game in Montreal – and got duped. – CANWEST NEWS
Tickets: Got ‘em, want ‘em, who’s lookin‘ for tickets!
That familiar refrain has welcomed Canadians to arenas, stadiums and theatres for decades.
Scalpers, also known as ticket brokers or resellers, have traditionally staked their claim to a bit of pavement, tickets in hand, money in pocket, selling to fans who covet a seat inside.
These days, those in-your-face scalpers have some fierce competition from online ticket sales either through third-party brokers or individuals selling tickets on popular classifieds sites such as Craigslist, EBay and Kijiji.
But lurking online are fraud artists, hoping to take advantage of people’s desire for something special combined with their willingness to trust an online stranger.
David Kurt says in hindsight he should have seen the warning signs. The Sudbury, Ont., resident spent a frustrating — and costly — week exchanging tickets with someone purportedly selling tickets to the NHL All-Star Game and Skills Competition in Montreal. The asking price: $800 for a pair of tickets to both events.
“I consider myself a sharp guy — I use the Internet a lot — and we were sending a lot of e-mails,” said Kurt, who initially sent $400 via an e-mail money order through his bank with a pledge to send the rest when the tickets arrived.
That’s when the e-mails from the seller took on a more desperate tone. The writer, calling herself “Marie,” wrote back that her husband was in the armed forces, just back from overseas and really wanted to see all the money.
Having sent half his money, and after consulting with his friend and fellow would-be All Star attendee, Kurt sent the rest of the money.
Then, the e-mails from Marie stopped. And, of course, the tickets never came. With the money gone from his account, Kurt called the Sudbury police, who were sympathetic, but said there was little they could do.
RCMP Insp. Paul Collins, the officer in charge of the counterfeit and identity fraud section in Ottawa, says people should always be wary of deals done either online or over the phone. “You always have to be mindful of how you are doing your business and who you are doing business with,” he said. “It is so easy to be victimized.”
Recol.ca (Reporting Economic Crime Online), a website maintained by the RCMP and federal government, received about 6,000 complaints last year for the online auction fraud, which would include ticket sales.
Collins says statistics such as that one and others monitored through Phonebusters, Canada‘s anti-fraud call centre, capture only a fraction of the economic-fraud activity.
“They are just an estimate. We think it represents only about 10 to 15 per cent of what is out there because these sites depend on self-reporting and people don’t always report when it happens to them.”
Being defrauded of your money and not getting tickets is a terrible experience; buying tickets to a high-profile event only to show up and be told the tickets are either fake or stolen is even worse.
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee is developing a website they hope will reduce ticket fraud for the Games.
In addition to its strict requirements for ticket purchases (Canadian residents must provide a valid Canadian mailing address and be able to sign for the couriered tickets), VANOC is researching how to create a secure, secondary ticket-sales site for bring together people with valid Olympics tickets to sell and for fans who want to attend.
The secondary ticket-sales site is part of VANOC’s “Buy Real” public relations and education campaign to encourage people to only buy tickets and merchandise from the Vancouver 2010 website or its official partners.
“For us, it really is a consumer protection issue because the tickets have already been sold, so for us it isn’t about revenue,” said Caley Denton, VANOC’s vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing.
“We feel we’ve done our best to protect the public.”
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