Conman Who Charged Families £1,000 For VIP Tickets To Justin Bieber´s Meet & Greet Is Jailed!!

A conman who stole thousands of pounds from Justin Bieber fans after falsely promising them the chance to meet their hero has been jailed. Andrew Ross, 27, advertised VIP tickets online to Bieber’s sell-out shows at London’s O2 Arena in March. He charged unsuspecting families up to £1,000 for the gold dust tickets, even though he never had any to sell. He also sold tickets for The Stone Roses concert at Glasgow Green in June but failed to deliver them. He was easily caught after using his own name, mobile phone, bank account and email address to contact his victims.

Ross, of Motherwell, Lanarkshire, claimed he had turned to crime after racking up gambling debts.
He was jailed for 12 months on Monday after admitting five charges of fraud totalling £6,458 at Hamilton Sheriff Court. Ross, who used to edit Motherwell FC’s matchday programme, escaped a jail sentence at the same court earlier this year for similar frauds.

In May, he was given a 12-month supervision order at Hamilton Sheriff Court, ordered to attend addiction counselling and told to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work. He was also ordered to repay his victims the £1,650 which he received from them.Speaking on Monday, his solicitor Jason Stark said:

It appears that Mr Ross further engaged in this type of behaviour to try and pay back the original victims. He has used the expression that he was "robbing Peter to pay Paul". This has had a great effect on Mr Ross’ life, he is no longer with his partner with whom he had a young child.He had an issue with gambling and had been attending Gamblers Anonymous.

Victim Julie Gall, 49, of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, paid Ross £1,110 for two VIP Bieber tickets as a Christmas present for her 15-year-old daughter Natalie. However, he continually fobbed her off with excuses about why they weren’t posted out. She said: 

It was a lot of money to hand over but my daughter was absolutely desperate to meet Justin. I checked out this guy before even giving him a deposit and everything seemed to be OK. But as it got nearer to the concert, the excuses started piling up about why he couldn’t post them. I can’t believe I paid him the balance. It’s easy to see through his lies now but at the time he appeared so genuine and plausible. 

I’m absolutely disgusted that somebody could pull a stunt like this. My daughter was in tears just because of some sick conman trying to make a fast buck out of us. The fact he carried on ripping people off after being arrested for an identical scam before is just beyond belief. 'Natalie was so excited on Christmas Day when she found out she was going to meet Justin Bieber. To tell her that she couldn’t was heartbreaking. This guy deserves everything he gets.

Sentencing Ross, Sheriff Douglas Brown told him: 

In my view the only appropriate sentence is a custodial one. The case involves a series of internet frauds and substantial sums of money were involved. Internet fraud is an offence which is all to easy to commit and the court has to impose sentences which will deter others from being attracted to obtain money in this way.

This is all just really sad, annoying and plain mean! If I was in their shoes, I don´t know what I would have done, I mean, waiting all that time, since Christmas, telling your friends that you are going to meet Justin and then, Bang! It was all just a fraud!!
This man deserves to be put away for sometime, my heart goes out to the Belieber who had her hopes of meeting Justin crashed by this man.