OHIO — Ticket scams are on the rise as the Buckeyes, Browns and Bengals are all back on the field.
Increased technology and artificial intelligence have made it even easier to get your hands on a fake ticket. Tickets can cost hundreds of dollars and many scammers try to appeal to fans seeking a cheaper price.
Ticket sales experts, like Brian Kaufman with Dream Seats, said if a deal seems too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.
“A customer who thought they bought tickets for the Ohio State-Michigan game last year from someone for what they thought was face value of $250 a ticket,” Kaufman said. “The market for that particular seat at that time was $1,500. The story that the seller told them was that their mother was dying and that their mother was in the hospital and they had to leave town to go to Florida. They said to just send the money and they would send the tickets, and of course, the customer never got the ticket.”
With technology evolving every day, Judy Dollison, president of the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio, said fake sites usually target customers on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
They often mimic a web address similar to well-known companies or use ads that look legit.
“If you click on those links, it can oftentimes take you to a scam website,” Dollison said. “Scammers are great at making real websites, making fake websites look very real, and it’s really hard to tell the difference. You need to look for things like if there’s an ‘s’ in ‘https.’ This stands for ‘secure’ to know that you’re on a site that is secure up to payment records.”
It’s always suggested that buyers use their credit cards when purchasing tickets because it’s much easier to get your money back.
If a website looks legit, but you’re not entirely sure, the BBB suggests you visit its scam tracker website and to see if the business has been accredited.