TWO Southampton students who ripped off thousands of pounds from people through a bogus festival tickets website have been ordered to pay back those they defrauded.

Dale Frost and David Martins earned £11,000 from selling worthless novelty tickets, a scheme inspired by BBC consumer programme Watchdog, a court heard.

The pair, who were studying at Southampton Solent University before they were thrown off their courses when their activities came to light, were ordered to pay back the outstanding £2,135 that is yet to be repaid by credit card companies.

They were found out following numerous complaints to Southampton City Council's trading standards.

Frost, 21, of Radcliffe Road, and Martins, 21, of Milton Road, ran the Z Tickets site between March and June last year, later incorporating it into a limited company called FM Entertainment Limited, the court heard.

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Southampton Crown Court heard how around 75 customers had bought tickets for outdoor events last summer, which included the V Festival, Download Festival, Reading Festival and Isle of Wight's Bestival.

Gary Lucie, prosecuting, said tickets were sold at genuine ticket prices and customers received them a few days before the event, so when they realised the tickets were novelty they were unable to get real ones in time.

He said it was only in the small print on the website that it said these tickets were in actual fact novelty items.

When customers contacted the customer services advisor 'Sarah' they were told that the terms made this clear, however it later transpired that Sarah did not exist, he said.

Customers had paid out around £18,000, but as complaints came in some of these transactions were cancelled.

Mr Lucie said neither defendant had previous criminal convictions.

Frost and Martins pleaded guilty to one count of using their company for fraudulent purposes, namely the advertising and selling of tickets to music festivals giving the impression they were genuine tickets when they were novelty tickets, contrary to the Fraud Act and the same charge contrary to the Companies Act.

David Reid, mitigating, said both accepted full responsibility for their actions and had no justification, but pointed out the short period of time the fraud had gone on for and the unsophisticated nature of the fraud.

He said Frost was now working for a paintball promotions company, while Martins is studying at Bournemouth University.

Judge Peter Ralls said he had taken into account the pair's early guilty plea and that they were a low risk of re-offending.

He said: "No doubt as young carefree students you thought it was a clever idea and didn't think anything too bad would happen as a result.

"Well reality has caught up with you.

"You have wrecked your careers and lost your good characters."

The pair were sentenced to 45 weeks imprisonment for each of the two charges, suspended for two years, to run concurrently.

They were ordered to complete 200 hours of community work each, pay back compensation totalling £2,135 between them and £2,500 costs towards the council's investigation.

Judge Ralls also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of a laptop.