Jail for One Direction tickets conman

A teenager has been sentenced to eight months in prison for duping three people into lodging money into his bank account for non-existent One Directions tickets which he advertised for sale on the DoneDeal website.

Dean McKeown (19), of 14 Fana Glas, Ballybane, pleaded not guilty at Galway District Court this week to charges under the Theft and Fraud Offences Act.

Three people gave evidence they had responded to a advert on the Done Deal website between December 12 and 14 last year, which advertised six One Direction tickets for sale.

One woman said she knew the tickets were already sold out but she rang the number of the advertiser given on the website and bought the tickets over the phone.

All of the witnesses said they lodged varying amounts of money into McKeown’s bank account but never received the tickets.  They had tried to contact the mobile number given in the advert but it was never answered in some cases and, in one instance, one of the victims was told McKeown was in hospital and that had caused the delay in sending her the tickets.

All of the victims contacted Gardai when the tickets never arrived and they realised they had been duped.

One victim said he had lodged €320 to McKeown’s account for three tickets.

A woman said she lodged €480 for six tickets, while another woman said she lodged €325 for four tickets and had even transferred €5 to McKeown’s account so that he could send the tickets to her by registered post.

Garda Jason Kelly said a third woman had rang him from Cork to say she was ill and could not attend court.  Charges relating to her case were struck out as she was not present in court to give evidence.

Garda Kelly said he contacted the bank and received a printout of all transactions relating to McKeown’s bank account.

The records showed the monies from the three victims had all gone into his account and had been withdrawn almost immediately.

The male victim was the first to contact Gardai and McKeown was arrested and interviewed last January in relation to that.

He said he didn’t have a clue how the money got into his account and that someone else must have used his account.

He claimed to have lost his bank card and someone must have used it, but he didn’t know how they got his PIN.

Garda Kelly said that when the other three victims made complaints, he again arrested and interviewed McKeown on May 6.

On that occasion, McKeown told Garda Kelly his PIN and account number were with the bank card he had lost.

He said he had closed the bank account when he noticed the transactions and he reported the matter to the bank.

He also claimed he had never placed a advert on Done Deal and he was not the person who had spoken to the victims who rang the mobile number given on the website.

Garda Kelly said the phone number could not be traced as the user had used a ‘pay as you go” SIM card, which could be bought in any shop and could be easily discarded afterwards.

“An advert can be placed directly on the Done Deal website using this type of SIM and the price of the advert is taken from the credit on the phone.  It cannot be traced,” Garda Kelly explained.

McKeown said in evidence he lost his bank card on a night out and his account number and PIN were with it.

Judge Mary Fahy said that normally, when a person loses their bank card, money is taken out of their account.

“I never heard of money going in.  If someone got my card, I wouldn’t mind if they put money in my account,” she joked.

Insp Mick Dwyer said McKeown was fully aware and complicit in what was going on.

Judge Fahy agreed and she convicted McKeown, sentencing him to a total of eight months in prison. Leave to appeal was granted.