Innocent Scot’s identity used to scam football fans
A Scottish man whose identity was stolen and used to impersonate a Premier League ticket website says he is devastated that fans who were defrauded thought he was responsible.
Ticket Maestro launched in July claiming to sell tickets to top-flight football matches, but the BBC has since heard from supporters who paid hundreds of pounds for tickets they never received.
one BBC Radio 4 You and your investigation It was discovered that Richard Russell was named in official documents as the boss of an online ticketing website, which he knew nothing about.
Russell, 44, said his home address near Stirling has now been published online, with disappointed fans threatening to show up to get their money back.
Ticket Maestro claims to sell tickets for certain matches in the Premier League, Scottish Premiership and UEFA Champions League.
When the site was active, it described itself as a “trusted and licensed ticketing partner” (sic).
Three months after it was founded, it disappeared after receiving orders for thousands of pounds of tickets.
A BBC investigation has revealed that Ticket Maestro was not licensed to sell Premier League tickets and the unauthorized actions were illegal.
Richard Russell’s name is used to sign all correspondence, including order confirmations and customer service emails.
When a customer pays, a limited company called UCL Tickets Ltd will be listed on the bank statement.
The company had a man named “Richard Rutherford Russell” on its list of directors.
The BBC traced Mr Russell based on this information held by Companies House.
He told the BBC he was surprised to find his identity had been exploited as a director of UCL Tickets Ltd – a company he had never heard of and which he had never agreed to be involved with.
Mr Russell said: “I don’t know about football tickets. I’ve never had anything to do with football tickets. I couldn’t even tell you two or three teams in the English Football League just now.”
Mr Russell married an Albanian woman eight years ago and has since lived with his wife and two-year-old daughter in the country’s capital, Tirana.
He explained that the address recorded in Companies House records was actually his parents’ home in Callander, near Stirling. They also have nothing to do with this website.
In October, Mr Russell realized he was a victim of identity theft when his parents received a letter in a post naming “Richard Rutherford Russell” as a director of UCL Tickets Ltd.
He told you and yours: “I thought it might be a scam letter so I went to Companies House and checked the company number.
“Sure enough, I saw someone suing a company in my name that I knew nothing about. It said I had been active since April.”
Russell said he began trying to remove his name after receiving the letter from Companies House.
“I had to send details proving that my parents’ address in the UK had nothing to do with Ticket Maestro and that I had nothing to do with it,” he said.
“I sent my passport, bank statements and everything.
“They got back to me very quickly and said, ‘We agree with you and we have removed you from this position and this will be reflected immediately’.”
Although his name has been removed from the Companies House profile, Mr Russell said he was shocked by comments left on Trustpilot naming him based on company information.
Mr Russell said: “It was the people who wrote ‘This is this person’s home address and he lives here’. “The address they quoted was that of my parents.
“It’s scary to think that someone can use your name online and they’re actually stealing other people’s money.”
A Trustpilot spokesperson said: “We take the integrity of our platform very seriously.
“When businesses sign up to use Trustpilot, they agree to abide by a strict set of guidelines and our team of experts will enforce our policy of action if we detect someone trying to mislead consumers through reviews.
“Our platform is open, independent and impartial. Anyone can leave a review as long as it is based on a real experience.”
Trustpilot said it had removed hundreds of comments from Ticket Maestro’s profile, turned off new comments and placed a warning banner on the profile to tell consumers what it had done.
Fans say Ticket Maestro managed to scam them out of a large amount of money.
Online payment system PayPal said it had received hundreds of refund requests from people who bought tickets from the site.
PayPal said purchased tickets are eligible for buyer protection, which covers purchases that don’t arrive or don’t match the seller’s description.
The BBC attempted to contact Ticket Maestro using the email address it uses to communicate with customers, but was bounced back. There is no phone number associated with this website.
Meanwhile, Leicestershire Police said they had launched an investigation.
A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said: “A 30-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and has been released under investigation. Inquiries are ongoing as our inquiries continue.”
