Online Ticket Scams: Recent arrest should prompt buyers to be more wary at online auction sites!
Photo by: James Jordan
Deputies from Clackamas County Sherriff’s Office arrested Brandon Joseph Ruddick last month under the suspicion of selling bogus tickets to the Rascal Flats concert in Rose Garden. The arrest was made after complaints about fake tickets being purveyed online poured in at the Sherriff’s office. Ruddick is said to have listed and sold fake tickets for the concert at Craiglist.org.
The case highlights the pitfalls you can encounter while purchasing tickets online. Bogus tickets can not only give heartbreak but can also be a nightmare for event organizers.
An online ticket scam on a large scale can create scenes of chaos at an event. As extra people turn up for the event, unruly behavior like pushing and shoving and minor brawls break out at the gates. Organizers are forced to turn away hundreds of disappointed fans carrying bogus tickets.
At times, folks with genuine tickets may be left out while those presenting fake ones mistakenly let in. To avoid this, organizers may take time at the gate to have a closer look on the tickets.
How to identify bogus tickets and uncover online ticket scams
It is always a good idea to get your tickets cross checked from organizers of the event. There are also ways you can personally know real tickets from fakes.
Fake tickets:
- are made of poor paper quality.
- feature little or no images on them.
- do not have a foil over the company logo, if ever they sport one.
These tickets are usually made by scanning original tickets and by taking their copies out on a color printer. But, if the original ticket carries barcodes, the tickets are guaranteed to be useless no matter how promisingly real they may appear. This is because the barcodes are programmed to be for single use and so allow a single entry with the ticket. The barcode reader at the gate would deny entry to fake tickets made in such a manner, if its original has already passed the gate.
While buying tickets from a stranger at auction sites, there are ways to be warned of fakes. This could be devices the seller uses to gain trust and appear more credible. She/he may pose as an authorized agent of the site and also send you invoices for a transaction. They also may send photographs of the tickets to seal a deal.
But the following should definitely ring alarm bells in your brain should you notice them in an online transaction:
- Poor language used on invoices and receipts sent by seller.
- Seller claims his PayPal account not functioning properly and asks you to wire money through money gram to pay for the tickets.
These are enough to reveal bogus tickets as you see them or when they are being sold to you.
Related posts:
- Online Ticket Seller restrained
- Avoid Internet Auction Fraud
- One more falls to an Internet Auction Scam!
- Ben Haag arrested: Police act on scam complaints on Ebay
- A Craigslist Scam ,You can Spot and Avoid
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:48 am
its been more than a year with http://www.gettickets.ca and every checkout has been hassle free. I guess, its not an auction site but a place where one can sell and buy event tickets.