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Scarletmist allowed music fans to trade tickets at face value but was forced to close after being targeted by bogus ticket sellers
A music ticket website forced to shut down by fraudsters targeting its visitors has taken revenge by posting the fraudsters' bank account details on myspace.
Scarletmist, a website established to allow music fans to sell unwanted tickets at face price, has been forced to close after being targeted by fraudsters selling non-existent tickets.
A statement on the site, which was visited by more than 2,000 people a day and which enabled 1,200 tickets to be traded without profit each month, says: "We have been forced to close the site because of the unacceptably high levels of fraud carried out by a small number of criminals. We are desperately sorry to let the rest of you down."
Scarlet Mist was set up in 2003 by Richard Marks, a 53-year-old doctor at the Royal Free in London and a veteran festival-goer, to allow ethically minded fans to trade tickets without exploiting each other. The site ran like a dating agency for music fans: you listed the details of tickets you want to sell and the site introduced you to prospective buyers. Tickets had to be sold at face value and the service was totally free.
But Marks says the site has had a growing problem with fraudsters and says he has been working with the police to try to stop website users being sold bogus tickets. "The fraudsters are difficult to track because they keep changing their contact details and e-mail addresses. Some of them have sold hundreds of tickets on our site and others. The police have a difficult job in catching them and the penalties are weak."
Marks reckons that one fraudster alone has sold dozens of tickets through the website, "netting an estimated £1000. But it is difficult to know how much he has truly netted since he has used so many aliases".
"It breaks our hearts to see genuine music fans being stolen from by scum," says Marks. "We set up Scarlet Mist to be a service to the community. We're devastated whenever we hear a buyer has been cheated of their money and we no longer feel able to provide a service that allows these cheats to prosper. We're gutted that the bad guys have beaten us."
Marks has lobbied parliament and the Office of Fair Trading as well as given evidence before the Department of Culture and Media on the evils of touting. He argues that web sites like Viagogo and eBay should be compelled to give information to the tax inspectors. "We do not believe that touting can be made illegal but we are ideologically opposed to it," he says. "We are keen to see touts hit by taxation."
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