It started as a complaint to the Attorney General’s Office:
"Why is someone offering to sell $29,220 of non-existent tickets to the Duke- Carolina men's basketball game at Cameron Indoor on March 7?"
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The complainant, a season ticket holder at Duke University, discovered tickets being sold in Rows P and Q of Section 14 on independent retail ticket sites. Sitting in the section himself, he knows that the last row for the section is Row "O".
Are the tickets counterfeit? Was it a system error?
We levied several questions to Vivid Seats, one of the vendor sites in which the contested tickets appeared:
- What is the verification process for ticket / sale legitimacy?
- How does the platform help customers be wary of non-legitimate transactions?
- What should ticket buyers (consumers) be careful of in cases such as this?
In a response from a Vivid Seats spokesperson:
In this instance, there were a small number of tickets to this event that were mislabeled by the seller, a mistake that seems to appear on several secondary ticketing platforms, including our own. Once we were made aware of the mistake, we contacted the seller and had it corrected. We can confirm that all of our listed tickets are legitimate, and we have had no issues with tickets sold to the event in question or prior events in the same venue.
They added that the company's buyer guarantee ensures tickets are "valid, authentic, and delivered in time for the event or their money back."
As of Thursday evening, tickets for Row P were still available on Vivid Seats for Duke's upcoming game against the University of Virginia.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson warned fans not to trust tickets being offered on social media for Saturday night's UNC-Duke men's basketball game.
The Attorney General's Office said scammers post to TikTok and other platforms that they have to sell their tickets due to a death in the family or other tragedy. Then, they request payment through Venmo or Zelle, only to send counterfeit tickets.
“The UNC-Duke rivalry is one of the most anticipated sporting events in the country,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Scammers are trying to exploit that excitement to trick fans into purchasing fake tickets. We want everyone to enjoy the game, not lose their hard-earned money to a scam.”
The Attorney General's Office shared precautions you can take to make sure you don't get scammed:
- Only buy tickets through reputable, established ticket sale sites
- Verify the URL in your browser, looking for a lock icon and an address that starts with "https:"
- Be skeptical of sellers claiming they need to sell their tickets urgently due to an emergency
- Buy tickets with a credit card instead of a debit card or through a peer-to-peer payment app
- Reputable sellers should clearly display their refund policies
- If you buy tickets in person, North Carolina has a law that makes it illegal for the seller to charge more than $3 over the face value of the ticket
Anyone with concerns about a ticket purchase or seller can file a complaint with the office's Consumer Protection Division by calling 1-877-5-NO-SCAM or by filing a complaint online.