Don’t Lose When It Comes to Buying Gameday Seahawks Tickets

Image courtesy of sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

Have you seen the price for Seahawks playoff tickets? It’s crazy—some are going as high as $5,000 each! I don’t blame people for resorting to the online classifieds to find cheap tickets or wheeling-and-dealing with a scalper at the stadium. But I do question how often people let their guard down and throw caution to the wind.

Last year I worked with a news station on a story about fake tickets being sold to the NFC Championship game against the Niners. The station interviewed a guy who bought tickets from someone posting on Craigslist. The buyer thought he was doing everything right. He arranged to meet the man in public on game day, obtained a copy of his driver’s license and inspected the tickets before handing over several hundred dollars in cash. But when the unlucky fan went to the ticket gate, he was turned away because the tickets were fake.

Surprisingly this happens a lot every year, and most cases seem to go unreported. Even though the buyer did everything right in his mind, he still got ripped off. Not only were the tickets fake, but so was the seller’s ID.

The message here is simple. If you buy tickets from an individual or non-verified reseller, you’re rolling the dice. I mean, is it really worth the extra hundred dollars you might save on a ticket if you’re not 100% sure the tickets are real? I guess it depends on whom you ask.

I know one person who made a scalper walk into the stadium first before buying the ticket. He wanted to verify if it was the real deal. It was a gutsy move that worked—but I seriously doubt any ticket seller, legitimate or not, would actually take the time to do that. My suggestion is to stick with the basics:

• Look for BBB’s seal when buying tickets from an online broker. Use verifiable ticket sellers and resellers that hold vendors responsible to ticket authenticity.
• Avoid shady transactions where sellers fail to provide contact information or prefer to conduct business in private. Never wire money or fill up a prepaid debit card as a method of payment.
• Know how an actual playoff ticket looks and feels. Steer clear of tickets printed on flimsy paper, with smeared ink and uneven margins. When in doubt, just walk away.

Sometimes our emotions get the better of us and we want to believe the deal we are seeing is legit. But I caution anyone interested in buying playoff tickets to first take a deep breath, come up with a plan, prepare to call an audible and don’t get blitzed by a scammer wanting to make a buck. Don’t be like the guy interviewed on the news last year—he ended up listening to the game on the radio on his way home from the stadium.

To see more tips on how to avoid getting ripped off during football season, check us out on Facebook and BBB’s Social Hub.

Congratulations! You’ve Been Scammed!

Photo by Psychonaught [public domain]

I’ve always pictured my parents as invincible—two superheroes who not only gave me sound advice growing up, but were always there to pick me up when I fell. They also taught me to make smart decisions and be skeptical of too-good-to-be-true offers. So you can imagine my surprise when I received a call last week about their major life-changing event. Apparently, my Mom was the “lucky” recipient of a $500,000 sweepstakes prize! All she needed to do was pay $2,000 to cover the administrative fees.

Luckily, they called me first and never wired money or disclosed any personal information. But that one phone call really got me thinking: What if my parents had caved-in and wired money? What if they had given the caller personal information? What could have happened if the bad guys accessed my family’s bank accounts?

Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens every day to unsuspecting and trusting people. Sweepstakes and lottery scams are real. The scams prey on emotions and people are quick to buy into the idea of instant wealth. In fact, according to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans spend more than $100 million a year on foreign lottery sweepstakes.

At this point, it’s unclear how my parent’s contact information got into the hands of the con artists; they followed the proper procedures—always researching businesses with Better Business Bureau, reading the fine print, ignoring phishing emails and telemarketers, et cetera. The worst part is that we may never know how this caller obtained the phone number. But, learning the red flags of these types of scams can reduce the likelihood of falling victim.

I reminded my parents to exercise caution and anyone who receives similar phone calls or letters should listen closely as well:

• Never pay for a prize. It is illegal for any company to require a purchase or fee to play a sweepstakes; just ask the Washington State Attorney General. Also, processing fees or taxes will be deducted from prizes and will never need to be paid out-of-pocket.
• Do not wire money. Wire transfers are a great way to transfer money when you need to quickly get cash to your sister in Iowa or your nephew in Florida; they are a terrible way to get money to people you don’t know and have never met in person, especially if they are “out of the country.” Once funds are transferred, it is nearly impossible to reclaim them. In this case, the scammer specifically requested a wire transfer from my Mom, but she recognized the red flag and didn’t do it.
• Spot the fakes. Bad guys will oftentimes hijack the names of government agencies and the logos of well-known organizations in attempts to confuse and fool victims. Reputable organizations will not call or email winners; notifications will be delivered by certified mail and never by bulk-rate mail. When in doubt, call BBB or visit bbb.org to see if companies and notifications are legitimate.
• Never cash checks. Even if checks look real, don’t cash them! Scammers often blast out extremely convincing bogus checks in hopes that even just one person will make a deposit and wire some of the money back—this is called an overpayment scam.

As awesome as it would be to win a ton of money out of the blue, it’s a pretty unlikely event. Nationally, complaints about prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries ranked #6 in 2013 with the Federal Trade Commission. Victims of mail fraud should contact their local postmasters or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service by phone, toll-free at 1-800-372-8347, or online at postalinspectors.uspis.gov.

And while my blood is still boiling over the fact that someone targeted my parents, keeping a cool head is key. Whatever you do, avoid the gimmicks and hard sells and learn how to spot the red flags; this will turn you into the invincible superhero that helps others with sound advice.