Caught: Music lover's red hot go at Chilli Peppers fraud

Don't blame everything on rock music, the band was just the bait

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers performed in Brisbane earlier this year, but a Gympie ticket fraud was not their fault. Picture: Contributed

SOME people blame everything on rock 'n' roll music, but you cannot blame the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for everything.

They were just the bait, when a young Gympie woman tried to see how easy it would be to steal money on the net.

It was easy enough, apparently, but getting away with it was more of a problem for Jaden Rihanna Webster.

Webster, 24, pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining $350 from a Chilli Peppers fan who thought she was buying two tickets to the band's Brisbane performance.

Webster had shown her a photograph of two show tickets, after copying them from a site she found on Google.

Webster received the money through electronic transfer and issued a receipt. Two weeks later, when the tickets had not arrived, the victim checked and found Webster's account was closed.

Webster's solicitor said Webster had tried to pay it all back.

She had previously tried to do so, unsuccessfully because her Gumtree account had been closed and a check on the victim's bank account did not yield contact details.

"She told police she wanted to find out how easy it would be to obtain money by fraud over the internet," the solicitor said.

"It is easy," magistrate Chris Callaghan said. "So we've got to send a message to the rest of the community to deter people from doing this easy thing.

"We all increasingly use websites to make business transactions and it is easy to rip people off."

He fined Webster $700, with no conviction recorded and ordered her to pay $350 restitution to the court within 28 days, or go to jail.