Timeline of the London ticket scammers since 2002
6/2/2011
March 15, 2002: The web domain theonlineticktshop.com was created.
April 7, 2003: Geert Van Meel refers to himself as Managing Director of The Online Ticket Shop.com. Limited in a press release that refers to the company as "the worldwide leading international provider of corporate hospitality and ticketing" even though it is a very new player. They also claim that their "client list includes three hundred Fortune 500 companies."
May 19, 2003: The Onlineticketshop.com UK Limited was incorporated by Terance [sic] Shepherd and Allan Julian Schaverien.
September, 2005: Shepherd ticket site Sports Mondial goes into Administration (B&C Associates -Cyril Gold's firm)
July 24, 2006: Xclusive Tickets Limited is incorporated by Alan Thomas Scott and Geert Van Meel.
September 22, 2006: Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Limited is registered by Geert Van Meel and Richard Nicholas.
October 13, 2006: The Onlineticketshop.com was put into insolvency administration. The
Onlineticketshop.com owed over £1 million due to undelivered tickets. The administrators are Filippa Bjorg Connor and Mark Brenner of B & C Associates, which is Cyril Gold's firm. Cyril Gold is one of the Xclusive defendants. B&C handled many of the Shepherd and Xclusive insolvencies and liquidations: Tradeandbid.com, Rugby World Cup 2007 Hospitality Ltd., World Hospitality Company Ltd., and ATC.com Ltd. which are all Xclusive companies, as well as another earlier Shepherd site, Sports Mondial.
September 25‐December 12, 2006: During this time, TheOnlineTicketShop.com domain was transferred to Xclusive Leisure, long before any official sale to XclusiveTicket.com was announced.
May 17, 2007: The beijingticketing.com domain was first registered to XLH (Xclusive Leisure &
Hospitality).
October 30, 2007: Official Beijing Olympic tickets website crashes on opening day of ticket sales as traffic overwhelms BOCOG's servers.
Fall 2007: XclusiveTicket.com bought The Onlineticketshop.com out of receivership.
January 17, 2008: Xclusive registered the domain name, TheOnlineTicketExchange.com.
February 4, 2008: Geert Van Meel incorporated The Online Ticket Exchange Limited.
March 9, 2008: A fierce article about Xclusive and similar scam ticket sites is published in the UK
Guardian.
July 22, 2008: USOC and the IOC filed suit against Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality for using Olympic trademarks on their websites (including beijingticketing.com) that gave a false impression that they were a legitimate Olympic ticket source.
July 2008: Theonlineticketexchange.com also offered 2008 Beijing Olympic tickets for sale on its website, including Opening and Closing Ceremony tickets.
July 31, 2008: Stories began to appear in the press about the beijingticketing.com fraud as ticket buyers did not receive tickets and messages were not returned.
August 1, 2008: Moriarty Leyendecker mounted beijingticketscam.com to provide a platform to collect and disseminate accurate information about the ticket scammers and any recourse victims might have or any action they ought to take.
August 2008: Xclusive Leisure was forced into insolvency. Xclusive hastily transferred assets, in
particular, over one hundred domain names, including some operating businesses, over from Xclusive Leisure to The Online Ticket Exchange LTD. This allowed them to continue online ticket operations even after XL&H was shut down. This continued a pattern of shuffling active domains and businesses into new shells, leaving the empty baskets to the insolvency practitioners.
September 2008: Xclusive's creditors met in London. Xclusive reportedly took millions of dollars from thousands of victims, not to mention causing them hardship and disappointment.
October 3, 2008: Allan Schaverien, who has since been charged in the Xclusive Tickets fraud, was given a two‐year suspended sentence in another case for defrauding a credit company over loans totaling almost £200,000.
November 25, 2008: Five of the Xclusive Tickets scammers were arrested by the Serious Fraud Office.
January 2009: A sixth suspect, Allan Schaverien, was arrested in connection with Xclusive and its
operation. Schaverien, who had been a Chartered Accountant, had founded the Onlineticketshop with Terry Shepherd.
January 22, 2009: Anthony David Triphook registered Ticketmate Limited.
April 16, 2009: Anthony David Triphook was named a Director of The Online Ticket Exchange Limited, a company tied to Xclusive Leisure.
September 8, 2009: TheOnlineTicketExchange.com registers the domain GigSport.com.
September 2009: Gigsport posts a blog called The Online Ticket which carries information about
concerts and sporting events and includes direct links to theonlineticktshop.com. Their About Us page uses wording identical to that of theonlineticketshop.com from 2008 except that Gigsport's name appears in place of The Online Ticket Shop.
October 8, 2009: Terence Shepherd (51), Allan Schaverien (65), Alan Scott (55), Cyril Gold (67), Geert van Meel (52) and Margaret Canty‐Shepherd (49) were charged with offenses ranging from fraud to money laundering over beijingticketing.com ticket sales and similar online ticketing activities. They are due back in court in January 2010.
October 2009: Insolvency practitioner and alleged Xclusive Ticket fraud Cyril Gold lists Lane Bednash, the liquidator of both Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality Limited and Xclusive Tickets Limited, as one of his thirty‐four Facebook "friends." Bednash is with Valentine & Co. A Robert Valentine, perhaps Bednash's associate, is also on Gold's short list of friends.
November 2, 2009: Gigsport.com Limited applied for UK corporate registration. The company director is listed as Mrs. Ela Shah.
November 02, 2009: Gigsport.com Limited promptly names a new director, Matthew John Davis, and a secretary, Caroline Louise Granger, and removes Mrs. Ela Shah.
December 9, 2009: The Online Ticket Exchange Limited, which controlled theonlineticketexchange.com and theonlineticketshop.com domains, was forced into provisional liquidation, as was another related company, Ticket Mate Limited. Ticket Mate Limited ran a website called ticket‐mate.com, which offered sports and concert tickets online. Tony Triphook, founder of Ticket Mate, is also a director of The Online Ticket Exchange. The Insolvency Service has shut them all down for now.
December 15, 2009: Another man was arrested in the Xclusive case.
December 21, 2009: Sometime between December 21, 2009 and January 9, 2010,
TheOnLineTicketExchange.com domain was transferred over to Gigsport.com from their prior registrant, TheOnlineTicketExchange.com.
January 3, 2010: Sometime between January 3 and January 5, 2010, the GigSport.com domain
transferred to GigSports.com [sic] from its prior registrant, TheOnlineTicketExchange.com.
January 5, 2010: Sometime between January 5 and January 9, 2010, TheOnLineTicketShop.com domain transferred over to Gigsport.com from their prior registrant, TheOnlineTicketExchange.com. It looks as if another one hundred domains that had previously been registered with TheOnlineticketExchange.com also transferred. Most, if not all, of these are inactive at the moment.
January 12, 2010: Between January 12 and January 16, 2010, TheOnlineTicketExchange.com domain registration was moved back from GigSport.com LTD to TheOnlineTicketExchange.com
January 2010: GigSport.com comes online offering concert, sports, and events tickets for sale.
January 19, 2010: Between January 8 and January 19, the Gigsport domain registration was switched to Private. Since 2002, the internet domain, theonlineticketshop.com, which was first registered to Theonlineticketshop.com LTD through Register.com, has been transferred over to XLH (Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality), transferred again to The Online Ticket Exchange Ltd, then to
TheOnlineTicketExchange.com, then registered to Gigsport ltd. and transferred back to
TheOnlineTicketExchange.com.
January 15, 2010: The Xclusive defendants are due back in court for an administrative hearing.
March 10, 2010: GigSport still operating. GigSport's Facebook fanpage has Asim Arsalan as its first fan. Arsalan works for TheOnlineTicketExchange. He used to work with Ali Nasir at Xclusive and was and may still be a close friend of Ali Nasir.
March 30, 2010: The defendants' first case management hearing is scheduled.
April 16, 2010 Leeds festival tells fans to "Beware of Touts" including GigSport.com.
April 19, 2010: GigSport's blog posts an entry saying that the Leeds and Reading Festivals warned against unauthorized ticket sellers and then listed Gigsports as one of the few legitimate sites to buy festival tickets.
May 18, 2010; GigSport changes its registration again, from Private to GigSport.com Limited.
August 12, 2010: Four people are arrested over GigSport fraudulent ticket sales. The GigSport .com site is still fully operational and selling tickets.
August 24, 2010: Tickets2AllEvents, LLC was formed by John William Granger. Remember that the original secretary for GigSport was a Caroline Louise Granger.
August 24, 2010: The Tickets2AllEvents.com domain was registered to GigSports.com Ltd.
November 8, 2010: The first hearing before the trial judge in the Xclusive case is set for Southwark Crown Court.
January 25, 2011: Between January 21 and January 25, 2011 Tickets2AllEvents.com changed its domain registry from Gigsport to its own LLC, Tickets2AllEvents Limited with J. Granger as the contact.
March 28, 2011: Gigsport shuts down its website. Gigsport customers receive notice of insolvency from Gigsport.
April 4, 2011: Gigsport.com is back up with entirely new content and a new domain registrant: J. Granger of Tickets2AllEvents. The site is similar to Tickets2AllEvents.com, with the same phone and contact numbers on their sites.
April 15, 2011: Allan Schaverien pleaded guilty in the Xclusive case.
May 18, 2011: Trial begins in Southwark Crown Court for the five remaining Xclusive defendants: Terence Shepherd (51), Alan Scott (55), Cyril Gold (67), Geert van Meel (52) and Margaret Canty‐Shepherd (49).
May 22, 2011: Gigsport.com has a page linked on its site that is titled: "Olympics Tickets - Buy Olympics Sports Tickets Online UK - Olympics Tickets and Tour Dates." It appears to be a temporary page formed with a template.
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