More than 100 people in Adelaide had their New Year’s Eve fizzle out after they bought tickets to a yacht party that turned out to be a complete scam.
Duped revellers paid $130 each for entry onto the boat which claimed it would include unlimited drinks and food, DJs and an idyllic vantage point to watch the fireworks over Glenelg. Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it absolutely was.
Bloody hell, these scammers have likely gotten away with about $13,000 at this rate. Further proof that Glenelg holds sinister energies, if you ask me.
TikToker Cameron Chappell was one of the 150-odd people who was duped by the scammers and recounted his story in a video posted on New Year’s Day.
@cameron.chappell We got scammed on NYE 😱 #nye #scam #scammers #scammed #adelaide
“We booked a New Year’s Eve boat party and when we got there, there was no boat. It didn’t exist,” he said.
“A few of us went and checked onto the event [page] to see, like you know, if we’re in the right location or anything, or even just to buy more tickets and everything was gone. Facebook page had been deleted, the event had been deleted and even the profile of the guy we were speaking to for the event… gone.”
The group had bought tickets through Eventbrite and a Facebook event page, which looked entirely legitimate until they turned up and realised it was all a ruse.
Chappell said some people had come interstate to celebrate the new year on the promised boat party, which was meant to depart at 8.30pm on Saturday night. He said that they couldn’t find anywhere else to stay for the evening and ended up going down to Glenelg beach to try and find somewhere to watch the fireworks.
The fake event also claimed to provide a bus transfer back to the city after returning to the pier but that bus didn’t exist, either. Chappell said he and his friends were left with having to get an Uber home which cost them another $200.
South Australian Police are currently investigating the elaborate scam, per ABC News.
We hope those scammers have a very crappy 2023 with all that bad karma headed their way.
