Mitch McCoy said the first sign something was wrong, was when he and his wife went to check in at the promised registration site, Ugly Monkey Party Bar in downtown Raleigh. It was advertised as "Raleigh's #1 New Year's Eve Bar Crawl."
Hundreds of people bought tickets. But the event never happened, and now many are asking if they were scammed. Mitch McCoy said the first sign something was wrong, was when he and his wife went to check in at the promised registration site, Ugly Monkey Party Bar in downtown Raleigh.
"30 people started showing up, 40 people started showing up, and nothing was happening," McCoy said. "No registration, no wristbands, nothing."
The group of four had found the Raleigh NYE bar crawl online.
The Eventbrite page promised drink tickets, food, photos and free entry to four Raleigh bars. "We were like 'oh, you can't beat this; this is awesome,'" McCoy said.
Well, it wasn't awesome.
McCoy said, eventually, there were hundreds of people there waiting, and no sign of the event organizers.
"There was a group of about 400 people just sitting there," he said.
Tickets for the bar crawl cost $70 per person. That money seems to be gone.
"At this point, yeah, there's not much hope," McCoy said.
WRAL News reached out to the bars listed on the crawl. Flying Saucer confirmed they were aware of the event, and had spoken to an organizer weeks ago, but are unaware of why it didn't go forward.
There's no bar downtown called "Trophy Bar." The closest thing, Trophy Brewing and Pizza, said they'd never heard of the bar crawl, and had closed at 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve.
Ugly Monkey Party Bar said they'd heard from the organizer leading up to this event.
However, on New Year's Eve, that organizer disappeared, refusing to answer calls or texts.
None of these bars were part of planning or sponsoring this event. They're just as confused as the people that bought tickets.
WRAL News also tried reaching out to the bar crawl's organizer, Chris Despes. We have not received a response.
"I 100% believe this was a scam," McCoy said.
McCoy said he's reached out to Eventbrite to try to get a refund.
"They pretty much said to contact the event host, and that is where we're at right now," he said.
Not the start he was hoping for this new year. "If anything feels fishy, going forward, I'm not doing it," said McCoy.
WRAL News reached out to Eventbrite as well, trying to sort out what exactly happened here. We have not received a response.
With so many people paying $70 for those tickets, we can say there's a lot of money on the line.
Subscribe to WRAL:
[ Ссылка ]
Follow WRAL:
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
IG: [ Ссылка ]
About WRAL-TV:
WRAL is your Raleigh, North Carolina news source. Check out our videos for the latest news in Raleigh, local sports, Raleigh weather, and more at [ Ссылка ]
#localnews #northcarolina #scam
