Innocent man's identity used to scam football fans
Richard Russell says “it’s horrible” his name has been used as part of a scam
- Published
A Scottish man whose identity was stolen to front a fake Premier League football ticket website says he is devastated that scammed fans believe he is responsible.
Ticket Maestro, which launched in July, claimed to be selling tickets to top football matches but the BBC has since heard from supporters who paid hundreds of pounds for tickets they never received.
A BBC Radio 4 You and Yours investigation found that Richard Russell was named on official documents as the boss of the online ticketing site without him knowing anything about it.
Mr Russell, 44, says his family address, near Stirling, is now being published online and disappointed fans are threatening to turn up to get their money back.
Not licensed
Ticket Maestro claimed to be selling tickets for fixtures in the Premier League, as well as certain matches in the Scottish Premiership and the Champions League.
It described itself as a "Trusted and Licensed Ticketing Partner" when the website was active.
Three months after it was set up, having taken thousands of pound in ticket orders, it disappeared.
A BBC investigation has revealed Ticket Maestro was not licensed to sell Premier League tickets, and doing so unauthorised is illegal.
Richard Russell’s name was used to signed off all correspondence, including order confirmation letters and customer service emails.
A limited company, UCL Tickets Ltd, was named on bank statements when customers paid.
It had an individual called “Richard Rutherford Russell” listed as director on Companies House.
The BBC tracked down Mr Russell based on this information held at Companies House.
He told the BBC he was astonished to discover his identity was being used as director of UCL Tickets Ltd - a firm he had never heard of, and with which he had never consented to be involved.
Mr Russell said: “I have no idea about football tickets. I have never had anything to do with football tickets. I couldn’t even tell you two or three teams in a football league in the UK just now.”
Eight years ago Mr Russell married an Albanian woman and has since lived in the country’s capital Tirana with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
He explained that the address documented in Companies House records is actually his parents’ home in Callander, near Stirling. They also have nothing to do with the website.
It was in October, when his parents received a letter in the post naming “Richard Rutherford Russell” as director of UCL Tickets Ltd, that Mr Russell realised he had been a victim of identity theft .
He told You and Yours: “I thought it could’ve been a scam letter, so I went onto Companies House and checked the company number.
“Sure enough, I saw there was filing for my name against a company that I knew nothing about. It said I had been active since April."
Once he received the letter from Companies House, Mr Russell says he began trying to remove his name.
“I had to send details proving that my parent’s address in the UK has nothing to do with Ticket Maestro, and that I have nothing to do with it," he says.
"I sent my passport, bank statements and everything.
“They came back to me very quickly and said: 'We agree with you, we have taken you off that and it will be reflected instantly’."
Mr Russell says he was devastated reading reviews left on Trustpilot
Although his name has been removed from the profile on Companies House, Mr Russell says he has been devastated by reviews left on Trustpilot which had named him based on the company information.
Mr Russell said: “It’s the ones that have put ‘here is this guy’s home address, he is based here’. The address they are quoting is my parents’ address.
“It’s horrible to think someone can use your name online while they are basically stealing money off people.”
A spokesperson for Trustpilot said: “We take the integrity of our platform extremely seriously.
"When businesses sign up to use Trustpilot they agree to adhere to a strict set of guidelines, and if we find there has been any attempt to mislead consumers through reviews, our specialist teams enforce our Action We Take policy.
“Our platform is open, independent and impartial. Anyone can leave a review, so long as it’s based on a genuine experience.”
Trustpilot say it has removed hundreds of reviews from Ticket Maestro’s profile, closed it to new reviews and placed a warning banner on the profile, telling consumers what it has done.
Fans say Ticket Maestro managed to defraud them out of a considerable amount of money.
Online payments system PayPal says it has received hundreds of refund claims from people who bought tickets from the website.
PayPal says tickets that have been purchased are eligible for Buyer Protection, which covers purchases that don’t arrive or don’t match the seller’s description.
The BBC attempted to make contact with Ticket Maestro using the email address it had used to communicate with customers but it bounced back. There was no phone number associated with the website.
Leicestershire Police say they have launched an investigation.
A Leicestershire Police spokesperson said: “A 30-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and has since been released under investigation. Enquiries remain ongoing as our investigation continues.“