A Scot whose identity was stolen to show a fake Premier League football ticket website says he is devastated as scammed fans believe he is responsible.

Ticket Maestro, which launched in July, claimed to be selling tickets to major football matches, but the BBC has since heard from fans who paid hundreds of pounds for tickets they never received.

TO BBC Radio 4 You and Yours investigation discovered that Richard Russell was listed in official documents as the head of the online ticketing site without him knowing anything about it.

Russell, 44, says his family’s address near Stirling is being published online and his disappointed fans are threatening to come forward to get their money back.

Ticket Maestro claimed to be selling tickets for Premier League matches, as well as certain Scottish Premiership and Champions League matches.

It described itself as a “trusted and licensed ticketing partner” (sic) when the website was active.

Three months after its creation, having received thousands of pounds in ticket orders, it disappeared.

A BBC investigation revealed that Ticket Maestro did not have a license to sell Premier League tickets and doing so without authorization is illegal.

Richard Russell’s name was used to sign all correspondence, including order confirmation letters and customer service emails.

A limited company, UCL Tickets Ltd, appeared on bank statements when customers paid.

It had an individual called “Richard Rutherford Russell” listed as a director at Companies House.

The BBC located Mr Russell based on this information held at Companies House.

He told the BBC that he was shocked to discover that his identity was being used as a director of UCL Tickets Ltd, a company he had never heard of and had never given consent to be involved with.

Russell said: “I have no idea about football tickets. I have never had anything to do with football tickets. “I couldn’t even tell you two or three teams in a football league in the UK at the moment.”

Eight years ago, Russell married an Albanian woman and has since lived in Tirana, the country’s capital, with his wife and two-year-old daughter.

He explained that the address documented in Companies House records is actually his parents’ home in Callander, near Stirling. They also have nothing to do with the website.

It was in October, when his parents received a letter in the post naming “Richard Rutherford Russell” a director of UCL Tickets Ltd, that Russell realized he had been a victim of identity theft.

He told You and Yours: “I thought it might have been a fraudulent letter so I went to Companies House and checked the company number.

“Sure enough, I saw that a lawsuit was being filed in my name against a company I knew nothing about. “It said it had been active since April.”

Once he received the letter from Companies House, Russell says he began trying to remove his name.

“I had to send details proving that my parents’ UK address has nothing to do with Ticket Maestro, and that I have nothing to do with it,” he says.

“I sent my passport, bank statements and everything.

“They came back very quickly and said, ‘We agree with you, we’ve taken that away from you and it will reflect instantly.'”

Although his name has been removed from the Companies House profile, Russell says he was devastated by reviews left on Trustpilot that named him based on the company’s information.

Mr Russell said: “They are the ones who have put ‘here’s this guy’s address, he resides here’. The address they quote is my parents’ address.

“It’s horrible to think that someone can use your name online while they’re basically stealing money from people.”

A Trustpilot spokesperson said: “We take the integrity of our platform very seriously.

“When businesses sign up to use Trustpilot, they agree to abide by a strict set of guidelines, and if we discover there has been any attempt to mislead consumers through reviews, our specialist teams enforce our Action We Take policy.

“Our platform is open, independent and impartial. “Anyone can leave a review, as long as it is based on genuine experience.”

Trustpilot says it removed hundreds of reviews from Ticket Maestro’s profile, closed it to new reviews, and placed a warning banner on the profile, informing consumers what it has done.

Fans say that Ticket Maestro managed to defraud them of a considerable amount of money.

Online payment system PayPal says it has received hundreds of refund requests from people who bought tickets on the website.

PayPal says the tickets that were purchased are eligible for Buyer Protection, which covers purchases that don’t arrive or don’t match the seller’s description.

The BBC attempted to contact Ticket Maestro using the email address it had used to communicate with customers, but was recovered. There was no phone number associated with the website.

Meanwhile, Leicestershire Police say they have launched an investigation.

A Leicestershire Police spokesperson said: “A 30-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and has since been released under investigation. “Investigations continue as our investigation continues.”