Ticket Scammers Receive Combined 16 Years Ban As Company Directors
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Written by Elliott Batte
Following on from a story we covered earlier this month (which saw a ticket tout banned from being a company director for 13 years), two men have been given similar bans after conning fans via the company Sportsbookings Ltd.
CreditMan reports that one of the men, John Koukoullis, was disqualified as a director for 11 years back in August 2012, after investigations from the Insolvency Service uncovered their scam - which saw credit card companies losing almost £220,000 giving fans statutory refunds for tickets which they’d purchased through Sportsbookings.
Now, a second man named as Paul Frederik Hutchins has been banned too, this time for five years - bringing the pair’s total to 16 years. Hutchins originally created the company, which sold tickets via The Real Ticket Company, and then handed control over to Koukoullis - who he knew was serving a bankruptcy order at the time.
With Koukoullis pretending to be Hutchins to the company’s suppliers, accountants, and indeed customers, Hutchins was able to withdraw almost £250,000 from the company’s bank account. Paul Titherington - the Official Receiver in Public Interest Unit - has commented on the particular case, and told CreditMan:
“This company claimed it could supply tickets to concerts and sporting events, but failed in many cases to do so or make refunds to customers. The company cynically exploited customers and credit card merchant service providers, who lost substantial sums. The Insolvency Service will pursue those who conceal their identities and misuse companies to deprive the public of substantial sums by deception.”
Stereoboard is totally against ticket scams, opportunist con-artists, and rip off operations, and we only provide you with tickets from trusted sellers and re-sellers who we can guarantee they will supply you with the tickets you want and pay for. If you need any gig tickets, we advise you go through our service. In fact, you can even find tickets for below face value - check what you can save money on here!
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!
