A team of illegal ticket sellers has been preying on unsuspecting tourists for years, NYC Park Advocates has learned.
The ticket scalpers are working in some of the most heavily visited downtown tourist destinations - Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, and Pier 15, (South Street Seaport)
The unscrupulous scammers sell Statue of Liberty tickets for between $ 80 - 100 dollars: re-sell used Statue of Liberty tickets: Sell people tickets to the Staten Island Ferry and charge people $ 20 just to enter Battery Park, a public park on the tip of Manhattan.
The group wear dark blue official looking tourist operator vests that say, SJQ Sightseeing Tours.
SJQ stands for South Jamaica Queens.
They have been a fixture in lower Manhattan operating in broad daylight for years.
On Wednesday career criminal Gregory Reddick, 54, of 118 Road in Jamaica Queens, was busted after leading park police on a wild chase in lower Manhattan.
Parks Enforcement Patrol officer Jean-Baptist Joseph, 33, saw Reddick on Pier 15 as he was allegedly in the act of conning tourists out of cash.
The PEP officer approached Reddick and ask him for ID. He refused cursed at him and ran away.
The officer called for back up. PEP officers tracked him down a half mile away in Battery Park.
Another officer approached the con and asked him for ID.
"F*ck off off, I ain't givin you shit," he responded, according to an officer at the scene.
He ran, and the officers caught up to him. He resisted arrest and officers maced him twice in order to get him to comply.
A large group of Reddick's associates formed during the arrest, yelling and screaming.
An NYPD officer in the park said that on Monday - two days before Reddick's arrest - he had received a compliant that Reddick had sold two tickets to the Statue of Liberty to a Virginia couple for $ 409 dollars.
30 comments:
F off I ain't giving you shit,I think those were close to the same words the big guy who got choked out in Staten island said
Its sad,if a cop choked this guy I'd look the other way.
Just like the scammers who walk in traffic collecting for whatever,with their crappy vests and typed,bogus id cards. And people actually give them money! I asked one mutt if they were a registered 401k charity. He smiled and said yes..............
F off I ain't giving you sh*t is the same response Hillary gave about her shakedown scam known as the Clinton Foundation.
Reddick? Hmmm wonder if he's related to Yvonne?
Just like the 70s, when scam artists from Harlem used to prey upon tourists on 42nd Street in Times Square.
So now the new folks are traveling all the way from South Jamaica . Hey, that's really enterprising. Wasn't America built on free enterprises and free market entrepeneuring? Besides, some of these dumb tourists need to have the supreme New York experience of being taken for a ride, financially speaking....especially those blank eyed corn fed heifers from Kansas or uppity French snobs.
Welcome to the Big Apple, folks!
Unfortunately, these rogue occurrences in NYC happen daily by the microsecond! But, what truly boggles my unquiet mind is why anyone would fork over $409 to a virtual stranger on the street to get to the Statue of Liberty, when there is so much online research and trip planning information in the first place!
Apparently, some people were just born to be low hanging fruit, and always ripe for the picking. In the end, no one should willfully hand over money to anyone on the street for any and all ticket sales, because the practice itself is not legitimate. It's a lawless, liquid cash 'con' game business without a paper trail, receipts and credit card protection transactions that only worsens without a verifiable business address and telephone number (and even that could be part of a scam), and will always end in a fleecing of its unwary victims.
Alas, a fool and his money always part ways.
And unfortunately the tourists can't/don't stick around to fill out paperwork to press charges, etc., and certainly wouldn't be around to testify in court.
our mayor at his best not trying to do anything again -- thanks -
There are aggressive hoards of people selling Statue of Liberty tickets right outside the Bowling Green subway every morning. People getting off the train can barely move for them. They're literally surrounding the exit.
I thought the only way to get to that island was a reservation and the official boats, so I don't know what they're selling, but they need to be taken care of as well and banned from hovering around that station. It's been going on for months now and it makes getting off the train for work impossible.
The sharks are out. Happy summer.
"Its been happening for years". Why the hell did you let it go on for so long? Making $3,000 a day doing this to visiting tourists is terrible.
His policies reinforce what I correctly call, 'a devolution of society,' and it's frightful how many of his 'devolved' subjects are gleefully on board with such a deeply flawed agenda for intentional lawlessness to prevail---because it continues to falsely empower the derelict and dishonest (no, not within City Hall), by behaving with reckless levels of entitlement that, for everyone else is a nightmare in decaying standards, as well as a failure to maintain quality of life issues (which have already been rapidly declining since January, 2014).
The bigger mystery, however, is why an entire city would allow this amateur/impostor to continue to pass the 'smell test,' because he's well beyond his expiration date---but, so far without any censure or stern consequences, like impeachment (because the words that he chooses are both incendiary and dangerous---not to mention inflammatory and irresponsible---and now deadly!
Tragically, there is so much blood on the mayor's hands, after he publicly delivered a speech that gave tacit, carte blanche to all deranged and unstable criminals, and hopeful, would be sociopaths, to use the entire NYPD as target practice (as evidenced by the ambushed, double execution murder of Officers Liu and Ramos, on Saturday, December 20, 2014), that his hands are now forever stained, and his record permanently tainted.
Then, two weeks ago, his second in command, Chirlane (who now employs two, six-figure assistants working on the public payroll, totaling more than $320,000 of our wasted, unauthorized tax dollars---despite the fact that she is not an elected official), had the gall to tell Diana Williams in an interview at WABC-TV, that it was disrespectful for the majority of NYPD men in blue to turn their collective backs on her counterfeit progressive husband, when he showed great arrogance, hubris and backstabbing disrespect himself, in showing up to these slain officer's funerals in the first place (whereas I would have screamed, 'Bloody Murderer')!
So, here's what's REALLY disrespectful and GALLING, Chirlane: Ignoring the rights and freedoms of all hardworking, city taxpayers' by hiring not one---but two publicly salaried personal lackeys for yourself, after the embarrassment of having to let your pal, Rachel Noerdlinger go (cronyism), when you're not publicly elected yourself to any city post!
Now, you'll soon be off to Italy for the second time, with these two vastly overpaid, glorified clerks in tow---complements of the collective tax dollars for everyone else who gets no personal benefit from this insane waste of money, and profligate, wanton waste! If you want two personal assistants, then why don't you and Mr. Regressive pay for them out of your own pocket---and not mine?
In the end, there are far too many disturbing actions that I could emphasize from this rogue, defiant and monstrously self-serving new (but very old) breed of empowered idiots at City Hall. But, then my list of valid grievances would rival a nonfiction bestseller tome!
Are we really going to continue looking the other way for another 2.5 years with this rotten lemon, as the city decays into a free fall of near total anarchy?
8 parenthetical phrases and 7 hyphened. Your blah-blah-blah wanders all over the jernt.
Those people collecting donations for the "homeless" all over times square need to checked.
Less is more: Why don't you tweak and hyphen yourself into oblivion, where you've always belonged? You've now crossed a fine line that borders on public menace and nuisance, without offering any on topic value!
Or, better still, take all of your internalized, 'schoolmarm' frustrations to a local schoolhouse and volunteer your judicious services to teach English as a second language---like I do in Connecticut! You've got way, way too much time on your hands, so I'm guessing that whatever skill set currently defines your faulty station in life (as opposed to the overall irrelevance of your online role as frumpy school matron), is underutilized, or more likely, you're an unemployed, societal misfit.
Or, is it your life's mission to keep trolling around sites to hone in on everything that I comment on with an unwelcome critique? Alas, if only you would exert this much time and energy toward activism, volunteerism and stern advisories for your local and regional representatives yourself!
Oh, that's right---you're yet another 'Anonymous,' annoying criticizer with no real purpose and direction. Stop harassing me with your imperious directives, because I'm not interested, and focus on your own business, instead of sticking your big snout into mine!
You babble on about Chirlaine and cops turning their backs (inter alia) . . and I'm off-topic?
God have mercy on the students in Connecticut who learn English through your auspices.
Iritano, you're acting like a big baby. Less is more is right. Your verbose and pretentious writing style is making your readers saw wood: z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.
To Less is more and White Skunk: Are you both mentally defected and disabled, or just stupid?? My statements are for an audience of critical thinkers, and NEVER meant for common, average, imbeciles like you, who, between the combined discharges from your useless brains couldn't pretend to conjugate a verb!
At first, you were only marginally annoying, but now I'm getting a little more than tired of your online noise pollution and personal, bullying attacks. Once again, regardless of whether or not you find my relevant and on topic comments to be agreeable, I still don't answer to you, and never have. This is a free speech, uncensored site, Gestapos! Meanwhile, I've not complained about any worthless crap that you've posted, because my focus is on the issues, where your tunnel vision fetish is fixated on personal, obsessive, compulsory bully tactics!
I don't care what you have to say, so control your sophomoric impulses, and STOP trolling and following my comments with endless, moronic replies. Ironically, what have you actually contributed here?
Oh, that's right---a big fat zero, just like your fat, empty heads of pointless, passive-aggressive sound and fury. If you can't add something of value here, then stop harassing me and anyone else who you disagree with---and then evaporate for good!!! And, don't ever speak on behalf of others to validate your unwinnable argument, White Skunk---because it's a cowardly and incendiary attempt at 'Mob Mentality' tactics that are as vile, cowardly and contemptible as you yourself are!
And since this is now tantamount to online bullying and harassment, the next singled out, hostile and personal attack that I receive will be reported forthwith (that means immediately, for simple life forms like you). Your undercover cowardice can only be protected for so long, amateurs, and if you press your luck once more, I'll really show you what it's like to get ugly---in worse ways than the ugliness that you continue to press your luck on right here. STOP THIS RIGHT NOW---THIS ISN'T FACEBOOK!
And, If you don't like what I write, then F**k off and saw wood---then, you'd finally be accomplishing something!
Actually, between the unprecedented ignorance of 'Less is more' and 'White Skunk,' it doesn't surprise me why we have someone in City Hall whose almost equal in like minded arrogance, ignorance and, forceful, bullying, Gestapo tactics.
And, as for you, 'Less is Less' (because in your case, Less is ALWAYS a whole lost less--and you prove it with every unwelcome, and now bullying reply), it's only natural for you to be envious of a full classroom of naturalized, 10-year-old students, for whom English is their second language, because you would automatically receive the lowest failing grade in the primary language of English that you purportedly speak. And, I won't even bother to wipe the floor with you because of your obvious high school education, versus my multiple, Ivy League undergraduate and graduate degrees---magna cum laude, no less. We're not on a level playing field here---nor will you ever will be.
Now, take your empty lunch bucket, and enroll in a few continuing education courses for wayward adolescents yourself. And, stop it with the online harassment---and the senseless, off topic ugliness that you and White Skunk created here will come to a halt!
Bullying? Recommending great works of prose composition? "This is a free speech, uncensored site..." - or sez "The Irritant"
He cant take the heat (so what does he do?) He stays in the kitchen - a fucking blog-site .. . and has a toddler shit-fit.
"My statements are for an audience of critical thinkers..."?
Ladies and Gentlemen. We have a r-e-e-e-a-l-l-y big shoe tonight. In our audience, we have The Crapman and the Queens Crap blogsite and all the critical thinkers. C'mon, stand up Crapper and take a bow.
"Magna Cum Laude". What happened to Summa Cum Laude? Close, but no, we're afraid not, NO cigar for you.
Can't take the heat? If that were true AILF, and the rest of the public fools on this thread who keep digging a deeper ditch, then you would have already slithered out from under your damp, dark hiding places with the balls to take me on fairly---instead of acting like the puny, over compensating, arrogant 'Wizards behind the curtain,' with a mob mentality, no less---where, unbelievably, you STILL can't control your impulses to stay on topic here without personal, unnecessary attacks, because you insist on having the last word, on a matter that is now tantamount to PERSONAL, online harassment. Just like THE BULLYING COWARDS THAT YOU ARE, WHO HAVE NOTHING RELEVANT, OR ON TOPIC TO OFFER, except more of the same 'Attack And Retreat,' AND 'Accuse And Evade.' You've been warned, and now you've all been reported. Defiant and stupid, too! Well played, imbeciles!
Please, children---STAY IN SCHOOL! Even 10-year-old students from other countries in my class know how to behave with character, integrity, maturity, and most importantly---SELF CONTROL, and they can do it at WILL---every mode of personal conduct that misfits like you have repeatedly betrayed here with a sophomoric vengeance--and where you obsessively keep displaying it for everyone to see, beyond reason and sanity, like bullying cowards who are out of control!
Also, White Skunk, if you don't know what 'magna cum laude' is, then it's not worth explaining to an ignorant, bitchy little pine nut like you! Don't visit your ignorance on others who are already more educated that you could ever hope to be. Then again, there could be no expectation from people like you, who can suspend all cognitive function at will!
Time to grow up and ditch the training wheels, 'Anonymous' cowards , and finally move on to ON TOPIC productivity--and not online harassment and bully tactics against me, and ONLY me!
I may be an average imbecile but I resent being called a common one.
"...and finally move on to ON TOPIC productivity..."
Thank you Richard for not mentioning me once in all your screeds here.
I may be a common imbecile but I resent being called an average one.
Please don't EVER soil the purity and symbolism of a dignified statue like Civic Virtue on this thread, by using its very namesake in place of your real name, you shabby impostor!
But, it's personally liberating to know that you've willfully displayed to everyone here how devoid you are in ethics and integrity, as well as art history. How sad, then that the universal, allegorical symbolism for which Civic Virtue itself embodies for everyone else, also offers the same protection and wisdom to a mangy sewer rat like you---but, ironically, you STILL can't control your arrogance and pettiness enough to even marginally embrace the statue's message of inclusion, ethical leadership and physical beauty. So, maybe it is you yourself who is part of the problem--among too many other personality deficiencies to name in this missive!
Also, it was you (once again, as always) who introduced Civic Virtue as another example of OFF TOPIC matter---only as a personal jab to me, when in fact, I've only raised the statue's neglected relocation issues ONLY when it was germane to the topical points that I successfully argued---so unlike you--who is only bent on petty, vengeful back talk that you yourself created, over an argument that you initiated!
Now, I could continue wiping the floor with you, but I'd only be feeding your unjustifiably vengeful fetish to spread more online hate, harassment and pitiful ignorance.
Now, don't you already have enough rope here to hang high in the wind already, my dirty little ditch digger?
See what we have to put up with?
Please check that last word on your "Magna Cum" diploma. It's not "Laude" but "Merda".
What's really tragic about you, White Skunk (or Skank), is that you're now behaving in ways that even animals themselves are not capable of behaving like, and where, if you had the courage to reveal your identity, you wouldn't be able to continue to brazenly harass, taunt, name call and make a public, anonymous fool of yourself in the first place (or ever), because REAL consequences would surely follow---and still may, as I've reported your ID cover for online abuse and harassment.
Worse, now all other legitimate, innocent contributors to this thread are feeling the senseless burden of your complete nonsense, and cowardly, verbally personal attacks that serve no contributing purpose and value. And if you are, in fact a consenting adult, the deeper tragedy here is that you are merely bent on unprovoked revenge and bullying--above all else!
Your primitive, narcissistic behavior is exactly the same as how a fearless coward acts---right before he is apprehended.
Hence, the "Merda" here is you---and it's all over your face---which keeps getting uglier by the minute!
No, White Skunk, there are no typos on my Magna Cum Laude diploma, the same one that you questioned earlier because of your extremely limited education! Incidentally, what diploma have you ever earned with this highest of scholarly distinctions---given that you didn't even know of the difference between Summa and Magna in the first place)?
Hence, the 'Merda' here is you (again, still and always), and it's once again all over your face!
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