PEORIA, Ill. — The hunger for concerts, sporting events, and other such gatherings is at a fever pitch after the pandemic wrecked all such occasions.
Just as hungry are the proverbial sharks in the water, feasting on the renewed enthusiasm.
COVID restrictions not even yet fully lifted, local ticket scammers have already begun coming out of the woodwork, said Shannon Cox, Peoria Art Guild Executive Director.
“Initially, we’d seen it on our Facebook for the Peoria Art Guild,” she said.
“We’ve had a couple classes at the art guild where we see a post, maybe on our event or on our page, that says hey, we bought tickets to this art class at the art guild, and I can’t make it, and I wondered if anybody wanted to buy them half-price, or buy-one-get-one-free. Then it’s intriguing, and I look it up, and that person has never bought a ticket.
“So, they’re using either a real profile or fake profile and trying to sell tickets to events they don’t really have.”
If such schemes are taking place at small events, consumers should be even extra aware when pursuing tickets for large ones.
“The real simple thing is, buy your tickets from the official source. Those tickets are guaranteed,” said Peoria Civic Center General Manager Rik Edgar.
“If you go to a third party site, one of the tricks of the trade of the scalpers is, they will put tickets on multiple sites, sell them multiple times, and the first person who gets through the doors, the bar code works [for], and everyone else is left out.
“And the ticket brokers, if you use a reputable one, all they have to do is refund your money, but you’re already out parking, your time, and you don’t get to see the show. If you’re buying anything on Facebook, especially tickets, there’s a very good chance you’re going to get scammed.”
Edgar said there have been some real life anecdotes of hard lessons learned about this.
“There was a story a few years ago when the Super Bowl was in San Francisco and folks were very excited and they bought tickets online off of a StubHub website — not necessarily StubHub — and they showed up and were paying $10,000 for tickets,” he said.
“They got there, none of their tickets were good, and the ticket broker only had to refund them their purchase price. They were out plane tickets, travel, hotel rooms.
“It is enticing. I think everyone has bought from a third party site at some point but, in the new market, it’s worth a couple of extra dollars to pay the convenience fees on Ticketmaster to have a guaranteed ticket.”
As if worrying about legitimacy of tickets for actual events isn’t worrisome enough, it gets worse.
“Make sure the event is real,” said Cox.
“I have seen cases where it’ll say there’s an event in downtown Peoria coming up six months from now and you can buy tickets half-off, but it doesn’t say where the event is, they’re kind of vague, and I believe they’re banking on the fact you’re paying $10 for a ticket.
“If they say it was canceled or whatever they say, because the event didn’t happen or whatever, what are you going to do about $10? It’s not like you’re going to take them to court.”
Edgar said he believes this problem will be alleviated as the world becomes more paperless.
“The new ticketing technology will rely less on bar codes and more on dynamic ticketing systems. That will also help guarantee that ticket,” he said.
Edgar said the Civic Center was in the process of changing over to the new system.
Full interview with Cox:
Full interview with Edgar:
