Lady Gaga's upcoming Monster Ball Tour is one of the nation's hottest concert tickets this summer. But what started as an attempt to buy tickets to the largely sold-out tour turned into a lesson on spotting counterfeit tickets for one New York City fan.

Nina Liotta bought what she thought was a legitimate pair of tickets to Lady Gaga's sold-out July 9 concert at Madison Square Garden, according to news channel Fox 5 (video embedded below). Only after the cash transaction occurred -- totaling $300 -- did Liotta notice that the tickets were fakes.

The numbers printed on the back of her tickets were the same, Liotta told Fox 5 reporter Barbara Nevins-Taylor. The two codes would have been different if the tickets were legitimate.

"We went on Craigslist and thought that would be the perfect place to get them," Liotta explained. "This guy wanted $150 for good seats. He said him and his wife couldn't make it to the Friday show; that was why they were getting rid of [the tickets]."

A StubHub representative interviewed by Fox 5 advised that would-be buyers should also check their tickets' barcodes, which should also vary from ticket to ticket.

But the primary line of advice for fans like Liotta, who rely on resellers for their hard-to-get tickets, was to buy through established resale organizations and never to pay in cash.

"In general, when you buy something online, you don't really know who the person is you're dealing with. They could be anyone, anywhere," an unidentified law enforcement official said in the segment. "There could be no ticket -- it could be a fraudulent ticket, a stolen ticket. You could run into problems."

For Liotta, at least, the story ended happily. Fox 5 was able to contact representatives for Lady Gaga and score two real tickets for the scammed fan.