By Daisy Kimpton
A 16-year-old boy from Chesterfield was blocked by a fake twitter account after sending the account owner money for Sheffield Wednesday vs Sunderland tickets.
Darren Payne, 45, the boy’s father said his son was desperate to go to the match and had been left “gutted and really mad.”
Darren said: “He is absolutely obsessed with football and Sheffield Wednesday is his main team.
“He works for me on weekends and in the evening to pay for his football tickets.”
The teenage boy said: “I’m a 16 year old lad so £60 is a lot of money to be scammed out of.
“I’ve been a Wednesday fan all my life and I always try to go to games.”
The twitter account owner claimed to be a woman selling football tickets for her boyfriend.
The boy was told once he’d bank transferred the money the tickets would be emailed over, however he was blocked just minutes after he sent it.
Darren said: “What really got me is they knew it was a kid…he told them he needed to sort a lift to the game from his Dad and they still scammed him.”
Tickets for the Wednesday vs Sunderland semi final sold out fairly quickly from the website, meaning fans had to turn elsewhere to find tickets.
Darren added another account had tried scamming his son for the football tickets that same day, and other accounts had tried scamming him personally on other occasions.
The boy advised other young fans to never pay for tickets by bank transfer and to either arrange to meet the seller with cash or use Paypal which allows users to cancel payments.
He said he found a legitimate ticket seller on twitter who he met outside Hillsborough stadium and ended up having “a really good night” at the play-off semi final game.
After allegedly scamming and blocking the boy, the account continued to advertise other tickets such as three Liverpool vs Aston Villa and Rangers vs Ross County tickets.
The teenager said: “I am hoping this won’t happen again.”
When ShefLive messaged the account for a comment about the incident we were immediately blocked.
