A Melbourne man is standing trial after allegedly swindling music lovers out of almost $40,000 by selling fake tickets to concerts by the likes of One Direction, Coldplay, and others via the online retail space Gumtree.
As The Herald Sun reports, 31-year-old Flemington native James Zombolas is set to face Melbourne Magistrates’ Court later this month. He’s facing 149 charges, including assaulting a woman, drug possession, and committing offences whilst on bail.
However, the majority of the charges are of obtaining property by deception. Zombolas ran his racket between 2013 and 2015, at one point fleecing the same woman out of $1,000 on two separate occasions.
Zombolas sold non-existent tickets to concerts by One Direction, Coldplay, Chet Faker, and Falls Festival. He also allegedly scammed a woman out of $300 by selling her fake tickets to the play Les Miserables.
If you thought Mr Zombolas couldn’t get any scummier, one man claims the fraudster asked to see his driver’s license as proof of identity. Zombolas then used the man’s identification to defraud several other people.
Gumtree has urged users to make transactions face-to-face and never transfer money to someone they don’t know. As we’ve previously noted, it’s hardly the first time that someone’s been stitched up on Gumtree.
Last year, we wrote about a UK politician who was busted after selling $200k’s worth of fake music festival tickets. 23-year-old Charmaine Bowers duped “at least 311” people looking to attend Belgium’s popular Tomorrowland festival.
