Counterfeit Ticket Warning

Thursday, September 20th 2007, 4:20 pm

By: News On 6

The Sooners are heading into a Hurricane and the Better Business Bureau wants to make sure the hottest ticket in town isn't a hot ticket. The Golden Hurricane and Sooners will face off in Tulsa Friday night. It's a game football fans have been looking forward to, and as News On 6 anchor Craig Day reports, the Better Business Bureau wants to make sure sports fans don't buy bogus tickets to big games like TU vs. OU.

On Thursday, the phones at the TU ticket office were ringing off the hook. It seems everyone wants to get a TU-OU ticket for Friday night's game.

"It's non stop,â€ TU ticket manager Shawn Pfannenstiel said. â€œIt will go all the way until five o'clock on Friday, I mean people calling and saying do you have any more tickets available."

The last time the Sooners played on the TU campus, 40,385 tickets were sold. This time around it's a sellout again, but TU has about 5,000 fewer seats because of stadium renovations. That means a ticket is even harder to get.

With the game sold out, fans are now looking for tickets elsewhere, and the Better Business Bureau says watch out. The BBB has issued a general warning for all fans this football season to be on guard when buying tickets on the secondary market.

"Any event you have, you're going to have people who try to scam or scalp tickets, or you know you could possibly have fake tickets out there, whether it's the Super Bowl or Tulsa, Oklahoma," Pfannenstiel said.

Pfannenstiel says it's always a good idea to be careful. He says he can't remember a case of counterfeit TU tickets in the past dozen years, he says most of the ticket issues they have to deal with concern lost or stolen tickets.

But counterfeit tickets have been an issue at other big games like the OU-Texas Red River Rivalry.

"You never know what you're buying, TU ticket manager Shawn Pfannenstiel said. â€œIf a ticket looks funny, if it is different than anything you've ever seen, obviously there is an issue."

For fans, it's better to be safe than sorry, so fans aren't ripped off and don't miss any of the action.

The BBB reports that after just about every big sporting event they get complaints from people who got ripped off buying fake tickets. Those tickets are almost always bought online.

If you are suspicious about a company you can visit the Better Business Bureauâ€™s website, bbbonline.org, to see if a company has any complaints filed against it, you can also find tips on buying tickets to big games.

Watch the video: OU At TU Football Tickets Are Hot Property