Warning over Uefa web ticket con

Mrs McLean had responded to an advertisement on the Gumtree site

A woman who was conned out of £600 when she tried to buy Uefa Cup Final seats online has warned other Rangers fans against web ticket touts.

Kelly McLean, from Newarthill, Motherwell, had responded to an advertisement on the Gumtree website for two tickets to Wednesday's game.

Mrs McLean contacted the police after the tickets failed to turn up and she was unable to contact the seller.

Gumtree said they advised users not to give cash to people they had not met.

Mrs McLean said she had seen the tickets advertised on the Gumtree site on Thursday and had negotiated a price with the seller.

She received an e-mail that appeared to be from the internet auction site eBay which said the company would hold on to her cash until she received the tickets.

"It was all in the heat of the moment. The tickets were like gold dust, and in the space of a few minutes it all unravelled in front of me. I was just devastated." Kelly McLean

Mrs McLean transferred the cash through MoneyGram at the post office at a cost of £41, but soon discovered she had been conned.

She said: "I thought the e-mail was from eBay, but it was all bogus. I contacted eBay afterwards and they said they would never offer to hold on to money in that way."

Mrs McLean, who had been planning to go to the game with her husband Jim, said she was "devastated" when she realised what had happened.

She said: "The tickets didn't arrive. There probably never was any tickets.

"It was all in the heat of the moment. The tickets were like gold dust, and in the space of a few minutes it all unravelled in front of me. I was just devastated."

Mrs McLean said the police told her they would pass the matter on to the fraud squad.

"The officer told me there was not much they could do. Now I'm left £641 worse off, with a sick feeling in my stomach," she said.

'Buyer beware'

Chee Ho Wan, from Gumtree.com, said the site was designed to put people in contact with traders for face-to-face transactions.

He said: "We are a non-transactional website and under no circumstances would we encourage people to transfer money for tickets to people they haven't met.

"We ask people to apply the same rules they would online as they would offline and that they read the detailed safety rulings on the site warning against handing over money."

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said: "Our advice is very much 'buyer beware'. If you are using sites like this always use a trusted seller and pay by Paypal, not money transfer."

Rangers will face Zenit St Petersburg on 14 May in Manchester and fans have been clamouring for tickets since Walter Smith's side eliminated Fiorentina in Italy.

Competition for tickets increased when it emerged Zenit would be using its entire ticket allocation.

Manchester City Council have agreed to erect huge screens in Piccadilly Gardens and Albert Square to broadcast the match to fans who do not have tickets.