IPL 2026 is in its second week and the demand for tickets to RCB home games at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru has created exactly the kind of opportunity that scammers look for.
As per the Times of India, a 25-year-old software professional from Mahadevapura in Bengaluru has filed a complaint with the local police after losing Rs 1.46 lakh to a fraudster who posed as a senior supervisor at the Chinnaswamy Stadium and promised tickets with VIP benefits that never materialised.
The police at Mahadevapura have started a case against the accused and are trying their best to track them down through the bank accounts where the amount has been credited.
RCB vs CSK: How the Vip ticket scam worked and how victim was drawn in
The report stated that, fraud began with an Instagram post advertising IPL ticket sales. The post caught the victim's attention because it offered more than just IPL tickets.These promises were made along with match tickets, thus giving a sense of legality and attractiveness to the whole deal which is not seen in normal resale offers.
Victim got in touch with this person who told him that he was a senior official of Chinnaswamy Stadium.That claim of authority was enough to establish the initial trust the scammer needed. The victim consented to buy two tickets, each costing Rs 3,700. But the above payment marked the start of a process in which other conditions were to be met for completion of the deal.
One of such demands was that of making a refundable security deposit.Extra ID cards for friends needed to be paid for.
Meal coupons were added to the total. Each demand came with a plausible explanation and the victim, already committed and trusting the stadium supervisor cover story, kept paying.
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IPL 2026: The fake confirmation and what happened when the victim arrived
To deepen the deception the accused sent an email confirmation of the purchase and instructed the victim to collect the tickets at Stadium Gate 10 with assurances that delivery would happen within minutes.
The victim went but no tickets arrived. He followed up repeatedly and instead of receiving either the tickets or a refund he was asked for more money. By the time he realised the full scale of what had happened he had transferred Rs 1.46 lakh across multiple transactions using both his own bank account and his mother's account after hitting his personal transaction limit.
He contacted the cyber control room and filed a formal complaint at Mahadevapura police station. Authorities are now investigating the bank accounts the money was transferred into and working to identify and trace the accused.
Bengaluru franchise have confirmed that tickets for home matches at the Chinnaswamy are available exclusively through the official RCB website, the RCB app and authorised platforms. Anyone purchasing from any other source does so entirely at their own risk and this case is a direct illustration of exactly why that warning exists.
