Fraud Watch: Scams To Be Careful Of When Buying Tickets Online

From sporting events to concerts, securing tickets can be difficult and competitive.

With more and more venues turning to digital tickets the possibility of running into a scam is even more likely. Amie Mitchell with the Better Business Bureau joined News On 6 to talk about ways to avoid getting ripped off.

Reagan: Last year, the BBB got up more than 140 reports of scams here in Oklahoma. But we know there's probably more scams than that.

Amie: There probably are a lot more we definitely want people to report to us if they have an issue. And they can do that on BBBscamtracker@bbb.org. But before people get scammed, we want them to do a few things. So, hopefully, they avoid that whole mess.

The first thing is going to be to try to get your tickets from the venue from the source. Now a lot of these retailers will have where you can buy tickets from a secondary source and you click on that, but you still want to check on that secondary retailer to make sure that they're legitimate. The National Association of Ticket Resellers is someone who partners with the Better Business Bureau and you can check to see if a reseller is legitimate. On verified ticket source.com. You want to check out the retailer there and make sure that those tickets are legitimate. You're finding the seat that you've purchased everything before you click that final purchase button.

Reagan: Are the areas you're seeing the most scams in like your high demand? Taylor Swift, for example,

Amie: Absolutely, we got a lot of reports when that happened. Supply and demand is going to drive it. So if it is an event that is sought after a lot, you're going to see a lot more scammers come out of the woodwork. And unfortunately, if you go online and just search, you know, "cheap tickets" or "tickets for this event", you're going to have some scam websites pop up.

So you've got to be able to filter out those who's legitimate. And that's why we say if you can go to the source, that's where you should go first.

Reagan: How do you pay for tickets online? What's the best way to do that

Amie: Credit card, we really suggest using your credit card and not a debit card, not cash some way that you will be able to challenge that charge. Should it end up being fake?

Reagan: It's one of those deals where if it's cheap, maybe too good to be true. Yeah.

Amie: I mean, you're you're going to be out your money, right? So you'd rather go let's try to find the verified legitimate source. First,

Reagan: You kind of touched on about if you are a victim of a scam, what do you need to do and why is it so important to report it?

Amie: Exactly. So we want you to go to the BBB scam tracker on our website, you can report anonymously, and you can go in and tell us your experience. You're not actually filing a complaint. This just helps us work with other organizations to shut scams down. Just like this.

Reagan: Shut the scammers down.