Cricket fans turn away from India vs Pakistan match as they fall victim of ticket scam
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Nobody likes to miss a hyped cricket match, especially when it’s India and Pakistan taking on each other, that too, on the big stage of the T20 World Cup. However, as tickets are limited, many generally miss out on bookings. This gives some people a chance to play with the emotions of the fans and execute scams.
One such ticket scam happened during the recently concluded India vs Pakistan match on October 23. After 90,000 tickets were sold out in less than 10 minutes, Australian cricket fans named Sunny Kumar and Jatinder Aashat tried other avenues to secure seats for the mega match. The path took them to buy tickets from Melbourne-based businessman David Alexander and his company DAZA Events.
The company’s website taglines: “DAZA Events is Melbourne’s most trusted premium ticket reseller.” As quoted by A Current Affair, Sunny had met Alexander on multiple occasions, including a lavish lunch at a Melbourne restaurant. As a result, Sunny and Aashat didn’t leave the chance to buy and sell packages and corporate tickets for their families and friends.
“It’s not a game, it’s an emotion for us. I bought them and then he said he has more tickets if my family and friends need it. We nearly bought 140 tickets in total off him. Nearly about $90,000 worth of tickets.” Kumar said. “They came from India, from Gujarat to Melbourne to watch this game especially,” Aashat said.
As fans approached the MCG, they were denied by the guards stating that the tickets were fake. Following that, the friends and family members started ringing Sunny and Aashat to report the issue. To which, Aashat said he immediate called Alexander and was conveyed that he would sort it out. “And just before the match start(ed), he stopped answering, stopped replying and then he disappeared,” Aashat said.
ICC T20 World Cup Australia CEO Michelle Enright reacts
Nitin and his eight friends bought tickets from Alexander via friend Sunny Kumar. “My son was about to cry. It has all eight different tickets, it looks very legit, you can see it has (a) different QR code with different seat numbers, reference numbers. We spent $2400. We want that money back as soon as possible,” Nitin said.
The ICC T20 World Cup Australia registered the case with the police and the CEO also expressed her deep concerns regarding the scam. “We take this matter extremely seriously. I feel really sorry for those fans. It is an offence and there’s huge fines for people who do this,” CEO Michelle Enright said.
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Enright also encouraged cricket fans to use legitimate channels to get tickets to the game. She informed that an official resale site is in place so that tickets can be put on resale if a person can’t attend the game for whatever reason. “We have an official resale site so if people can’t get to the match for whatever reason, they’re able to sell their tickets on that resale site,” Enright said.
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Wansh Agarwal
(140 Articles Published)