A bank official from Bijoygarh, a Class XII student from Howrah, an engineer from Kankurgachhi and an automobile sector professional from Arunachal Pradesh: all have at least one thing in common. They had “purchased” tickets for the India-South Africa match at Eden Gardens on Sunday from sellers on Facebook and were allegedly duped.
Several Calcuttans this newspaper spoke to said they failed to get the match tickets through bookmyshow.com — the official portal selling cricket World Cup tickets — and had been duped of their money by people they met on Facebook claiming to have match tickets.
Atleast one of them —Soumyajyoti Banerjee — lodged a formal complaint with Cyber police station at Lalbazar on Thursday night.
The bank official: Soumyajyoti Banerjee, 30, has lost Rs 94,000, he alleged. Banerjee said after he failed to book a ticket online, he came across a post on Facebook where a person claimed that he had tickets to the India-South Africa match.
“I contacted this person. He said he was a young cricketeer attached to a club. He said he had connections which gave him access to tickets even when they were not available online,” Banerjee said.
Banerjee is said to have transferred Rs 94,000 for 42 tickets into four bank accounts as he was asked to do. He was told that the tickets would reach him by November 1 (Wednesday). Banerjee did not receive the tickets till Thursday evening and the man who promised him the tickets had switched his phone off. Banerjee said he was planning to take a personal loan to return the money that he took from his relatives, friends and family for the tickets.
The Student: Ramij Hasan Mallick is a Class XII student in a school at Howrah’s Shaympur. He and one of his friends lost Rs 30,000 that he had transferred to a ticket seller on Facebook who had promised him 20 tickets to the match at Eden Gardens on Sunday.
“Initially, my friends and I wanted eight tickets. When we did not get through the bookmyshow portal, one of us spotted a person named Ayan Gupta on Facebook. He had posted in his profile that he had tickets for the match. I contacted him through the messenger. He gave me his phone number,” Mallick told Metro.
“As some of our seniors heard that we were arranging tickets, they asked us to book another 12 tickets. Ayan Gupta convinced us that he would not be able to retain the tickets if we did not make the full payment in advance. We transferred Rs 30,000 from two different accounts,” he
said.
Mallick said the tickets were to be handed over to him in front of Tollygunge Metro station on November 1. “The seller’s phone is unreachable now,” Mallick said.
Mallick has sought a time of three months from his friends to return the money he had collected for the tickets.
The engineer: Abhas Das, 25, an engineer in a private firm who lives in Kankurgachhi, also fell for the same trap.
“The man said he was in Malda and would not be able to retain the tickets if I did not pay any advance. He was selling us two tickets in the lower tier of the D Block for Rs 3,000 each. I agreed to pay Rs 1000 as advance. I transferred the money. But now I cannot connect with him. More than the money I have lost, what is worse is that now I do not have tickets for the match,” he
said.
Automobile official: Sumanta Sarkar, 30, said he had contacted a person on Facebook and transferred Rs 1,000 hoping to get the tickets in hand once he reached Calcutta. He realised he was defrauded when he saw “his ticket” was being displayed for sale by someone else on Facebook.
“The moment I paid Rs 1000 for one ticket, I was sent the photograph of a ticket which I was promised to be handed over when I reached Calcutta. But on Wednesday I saw that someone else on Facebook had posted the same photograph (of the ticket) pegging it up for sale,” Sarkar said. Sarkar, who is expected to reach Calcutta on Friday, is not sure if he would be able to watch the match on Sunday.