Following on from last week’s report of a London man who used a fake ticketing website to scam over $6 million from imaginary tickets to high-profile concerts and major sporting events, yet another online ticket scammer has been put behind bars.
46-year-old Brenda Lowe from Stockport in Greater Manchester, England has pleaded guilty to a court of accounts of fraud as well as three offences of theft and sentenced to a combined three years and eight months jail term, reports Click Manchester.
Lowe falsely advertised tickets on eBay for a George Michael tour, including sold-out performances at Earl’s Court in London and the Manchester Evening News Aren, to which winning bidders paid upfront for the price of the tickets.
Lowe then supplied a false Ticketmaster reference code for the performances and made of with the cash, admitting to the cour that she had sold fake tickets to over 20 victims to the tune of £7,274 (approx $AU 12,000).
The investigation into Lowe’s crimes was carried out by local police’s Volume Fraud Team, when they interviewed the fraudster about her illegal practices, she said she was willing to reimburse the victims lost money, but it was later found under investigation that she was intending to use fraudulent money, obtained from the profits of selling her grandmother’s property in order to pay for home care fees.
“Lowe was indescriminate in who she conned money out of,” said Detective Sergeant Neal Coburn. “She took it from members of her own family as well as complete strangers.”
Lowe spent much of what she pocketed, including the £145,000 from her grandmother’s property, on online gambling websites.
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“Clearly, her gambling problem played a huge role in her relationship to other people’s money and it was in order to feed this insatiable habit that she took to largescale fraud,” detailed Detective Coburn. “These on-line customers should have been looking forward to a night out at a large pop concert. Instead, they were left to rue the day they came into virtual contact with Brenda Lowe.”
The news of the online ticket scammer comes right after one David Spanton was sentenced to 22 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to maintaining a website called Ticketindex.com that offered fake tickets to music concerts, shows and sports events, by upping the prices on rare tickets and then never delivering the goods.
It’s the latest in a number of conmen making music headlines for their fraudulence. Including a 46-year-old man from NSW who swindled millions from would-be investors in his fraudulent music label by fooling them with photoshopped images of himself rubbing shoulders with rock stars, politicians and cultural power brokers.
