The main rule, which Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine skips in his warning, is not to buy tickets from Craigslist. That should take care of the bulk of these secondary-market tricks, but some buyers still slip through a cracks. So here's the latest illustration, via the Akron Beacon Journal:
“For every scam that gets reported there are probably 10 or more that don’t, so we want consumers to be very careful,” DeWine said in the release. "If someone says you have to wire money to buy tickets, it’s likely a scam."Watch out for the weird emphasis on the seller's military ID (misplaced trust or something?) and requests for funky payment methods (prepaid debit cards, which, again, just seems like a bad idea from the outset).
One of the advertisers promised six tickets for $800. They claimed to be in the military and showed an ID. Although the ID was legitimate, it was stolen.
A second person was scammed out of $400 by a person also using a stolen military ID. The same person lost another $400 by sending a prepaid debit card, but the fake seller never sent the tickets.
There's your PSA for December, folks. We'll see you 'round the eggnog bowl.
