Mumbai:
If you are willing to shell out Rs 1.5 lakh for a ticket to the most coveted event in town, all you have to do is log on to social networking sites to get your hands on one.
People lucky enough to get one of the 3,000-odd tickets available for the general public and those with access to tickets from the reserved quota are cashing in on the mania surrounding the India-Sri Lanka World Cup final clash by selling them for more than eight times their actual price. And, many of them are doing so on social networking sites like Facebook.
Two web pages ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 tickets and Cricket World Cup 2011 had people quoting prices for tickets they claimed to possess along with their contact details.
The most expensive tickets for the Garware Club, which were originally priced at Rs 20,000, were on offer for Rs 1.5 lakh.
One of the pages had people quoting Rs 50,000 for the Sunil Gavaskar Stand, Rs 70,000 for MCA and Rs 1,15,000 for Garware Club while the other one had tickets for the Vijay Merchant stand at Rs 63,000 each, North Stand at Rs 65,000, Garware Club at Rs 1.5 lakh, VIP Grandstand at Rs 1.3 lakh and Sachin Tendulkar stand for Rs 62,000.
Potential buyers were negotiating the prices on the website itself and sellers agreed to bring the prices down by a maximum of Rs 5,000.
When MiD DAY spoke to some of the sellers, they turned out to be college students trying to sell off the tickets as soon as possible.
Tout-talkOutside the Mumbai Hockey Association in Churchgate, where tickets were being handed over to the people who had bought them online in the ballot for the general quota, touts claimed to have tickets for the North Stand, Garware Pavillion and Sachin Tendulkar stand.
When MiD DAY approached one of the touts, he quoted the prices as Rs 20,000 for the 1,500-rupee tickets, Rs 30,000 for the 3,500-rupee ones, Rs 70,000 for the 5,000 rupee ones and Rs 1 lakh for the Garware Club. The tout was willing to bring the price down to Rs 90,000 for the Garware Club ticket.
Outside Wankhede Stadium, a tout said he could arrange 5 VVIP tickets at Rs one lakh each.
Another man near the ticket counters said he was arranging for more tickets. "I have sent a few of my men inside. I am willing to invest Rs 20,000 per ticket because I know I'll get at least Rs 50,000 for each one of them."
From the expertVijay Mukhi, cyber expert, said, "I wouldn't purchase the tickets from people selling them on social networking sites. They could be fake tickets printed by people looking to make a quick buck. Section 66 of the Information Technology Act has a provision for a three-year jail term for people trading online without permission or authenticity but it would be very difficult to track them down. Most networking sites do not cooperate with the police and the sellers would be trading anonymously."