The check follows a complaint from a member of St. Petersburg's Legislative Assembly, to whom ticket buyers who could not get refunds for the canceled shows had appealed, according to Kommersant.
Say Agency is registered in Moscow, so the collected materials will be sent to the Interior Ministry's central office, which will decide whether there are grounds to open a criminal case. The Interior Ministry has not publicly announced the check.
Buyers, meanwhile, have begun filing lawsuits en masse. According to The Insider, by September 24 six claims against Say Agency totaling more than 1.4 million rubles had been registered in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Voronezh. Claims kept coming: on September 28 a resident of Yakutsk demanded that her contract with Say Agency and Intickets be terminated and 108,900 rubles returned for three tickets plus the service fee; on September 29 a court in St. Petersburg registered another claim for 34,000 rubles for tickets, plus 5,000 rubles in moral damages and a fine.
Intickets refuses refunds, citing the fact that the tickets were bought in a promotion and are non-refundable. Rospotrebnadzor issued a warning to Say Agency in early September: after reviewing the offer, the consumer rights watchdog concluded that the non-refundable condition for promotional tickets contradicts consumer protection law. Say Agency CEO Anna Subcheva has said the company considers its actions lawful and has handed the agency's claims to lawyers.
The Kanye West concerts were announced for Gazprom Arena on October 10 and 11. Tickets cost from 9,000 to 160,000 rubles. Say Agency claimed it sold about 81,000 tickets in the first 24 hours and more than 100,000 in two days. Sales began on August 17, and on August 24 Gazprom Arena said no lease agreement for the stadium had been signed with Say Agency. The organizer insisted it had started sales on the basis of an official letter from the venue and published documents under which the arena allowed ticket sales to begin on condition that a contract be signed and a prepayment made later. On September 4 Gazprom Arena said there were no concerts by foreign performers in its October calendar. On September 29 the U.S. agency Access Opera, linked to West's world tour, confirmed the cancellation of the St. Petersburg shows and advised buyers to seek refunds from Say Agency.
According to Fontanka's calculations, based on the claimed sales of more than 100,000 tickets and an average price of about 26,000 rubles, nominal sales could have amounted to about 2.6 billion rubles. A service fee of about 10 percent could have added another 260 million rubles, which under Say Agency's offer was not refundable even if the event was canceled.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, had spoken out against West's performances in Russia, saying the rapper supports Nazi ideology and Adolf Hitler.
Sources differ: Kommersant writes that the check concerns possible especially large-scale fraud, but no decision to open a criminal case has been made; The Insider specifies that the check is being conducted by the Interior Ministry's department for the Petrograd district and that the ministry has not publicly announced it. RBC, citing sources, reported that the concerts will not take place; Say Agency had promised by then to provide information on the fate of the shows on September 30. According to RBC, the event was initially supported by some officials in the Kremlin, but it was not coordinated with St. Petersburg authorities.