Don’t fall for IPL ticket bait on social media, warnings ahead the big match at Eden
Telegraph | 21 March 2025
Several cricket fans who failed to obtain IPL tickets online but desperately wanted to see defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders take on Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru at Eden Gardens on Saturday, have fallen prey to cheats through social media handles.
Such cheats took their money by making false promises of match tickets.
Sources at the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar said they have received multiple emails and phone calls reporting such crimes.
Ankita Burman, a resident of Girish Park, spotted an Instagram page that promised “trusted and verified service” in providing IPL tickets.
“I contacted the admin and came across a person who introduced himself as Nitin Kumar Singh. He shared his PAN card as his credentials to win my confidence,” the third-year college student said.
Ankita paid ₹12,000 for six tickets, following which she received an email confirmation and an attachment that looked like an e-ticket. The man had promised to send the tickets by post, but she alleged that he stopped taking her calls after the payment.
Animesh Mandal, an interior designer, said he was cheated by a person named Rahul Roy whom he met on Facebook.
“I sent him money for one ticket. But he snapped all contacts after that,” said Mandal, a resident of Habra in North 24-Parganas.
The police said there were many more who in a desperate bid to get an IPL ticket transferred money to strangers.
“The fraudsters are showing the photograph of a ticket on social media and trying to lure people into buying it. It is not clear if the photographs are photoshopped or actual tickets,” said an officer.
The police said they got the identity documents of some of the fraudsters from their victims.
“The authenticity of these documents has yet to be verified,” said an officer.
This is not the first time people have been cheated trying to obtain an IPL ticket. There were many such reports during the last edition as well.
Online IPL tickets can be booked through the IPL official website and the BookMyShow app or website, the police said. A limited number of tickets are also available offline from ticket counters on the Maidan.
“It is always risky to trust someone you have never met in person and transfer money hoping that he would send an IPL ticket. Last year, there were several similar cases where we found that fraudsters were using the photograph of one ticket to collect money from many bidders,” a senior police officer said.
The officer said that they were “keeping an eye” on suspicious pages on social media.