New Orleans Saints fans are being warned to be careful before buying tickets to see the team play in the Superdome, even if the reseller says he obtained them from Ticketmaster’s TicketExchange.
Some fans reportedly have fallen victim to scams already this season, often times from street scalpers selling what turns out to be counterfeit tickets. In some cases, the scam has involved reselling tickets with already-cancelled barcodes.
In a recent segment on WWL-TV, Superdome general manager Alan Freeman said law enforcement has been stepping up efforts to thwart scalping, which is illegal within 750 feet of the Superdome.
“The guys that we found actually had a handful of tickets, between 20 and 25 tickets each. How they got those tickets we don’t know, but if we catch them we take those tickets, and they’re just out whatever they paid for those tickets and they’re going to court,” Freeman said. (See the video below.)
Freeman recommends fans buy tickets directly from reputable sources and avoid street scalpers altogether. Ticketmaster’s resale site TicketExchange, which handles sanctioned resale for most NFL teams, is considered a safe, secure site.
But some fans have been scammed when they bought tickets from scalpers who resold tickets that had already been cancelled. Once a ticket is resold on the site, the barcode is cancelled and a new one is issued. But in some cases, according to WWL-TV, scalpers have resold tickets with cancelled barcodes, which do not scan when presented at the gate.
“That’s really about the only way you can be 100 percent sure that you’re getting a legitimate ticket is to buy it from a legitimate source,” Freeman told WWL-TV.