Ole Miss Football tickets are in high demand, and thousands of students miss out. The subsequent scramble to buy and sell tickets creates ripe opportunities for scammers.
The University of Mississippi has sent emails to students emphasizing how to avoid ticket scams. These emails were sent from the university’s public relations account (UMPR) on Sept. 24 and Nov. 11 just before big home football games against LSU and Florida.
They remind students that there “is not a dedicated student resale marketplace for student tickets, and it’s important to be cautious when buying resale tickets.”
According to the emails, screenshots of tickets are not accepted for admission into home games. The university advises students to be wary when buying tickets off GroupMe, social media or Craigslist.
The university also provided ways to avoid scams and receive legitimate tickets. These methods include buying from official sources, not buying from or selling to strangers and exchanging tickets in person in well-populated locations on campus.
Students can transfer tickets on the Ole Miss tickets website by selecting the ticket they wish to transfer and entering the name and phone number or student email address of the transfer recipient. However, there is no way for the site to police transactions, since payment transfers cannot be completed on the site. Students could plausibly transfer their tickets and not receive any payment or pay other students for tickets, which the seller did not transfer.
Numerous students have been scammed.
Freshman exercise science major Quinn Amory missed out on season tickets and joined a GroupMe to fix her issue.
“I was added to a GroupMe, and the scammer pretended to be someone else,” Armory said.
“When I sent them the money for season tickets, the scammer never sent the tickets.”
Amory went to the University Police Department, but there was little the officers could do to get her money back.
The university is aware of the issues with scams and is working on a way for students to resell tickets to other students.
“There is a possibility that we could be working on one (way to resell tickets for students) prior to next season,” Assistant Athletic Director for Ticketing Operations Jarren Ramsey said in an interview with The Daily Mississippian. “I don’t know what the real chance of that is just yet, but there is something that we could be working on toward making sure that there is a safer option for students.”
Some students who were unable to buy student tickets have relied on SeatStock, a third-party seller that allows students to either pay for tickets or bid on them. Katelyn Stepkowski, a freshman exercise major, used this site to acquire her ticket for the LSU game on Sept. 27.
“All I had to do was put in my student email so they could confirm I’m a student, and then I was able to bid on tickets,” Stepkowski said. “I was able to get a student section ticket for $185. The day of the LSU game, the owner of the ticket sent them over, and I was able to put my ticket in my Apple Wallet.”
However, Ramsey stated that the university does not endorse SeatStock and cautions students against selling to, or buying from, strangers.
“So I’m not familiar with SeatStock. I don’t know where that originated from,” Ramsey said. “The one thing that we try to tell any of the students that we have a chance to talk to when they call is to only purchase or accept a transfer from a student that they are familiar with, but I’m not familiar with SeatStock.”
Students should be especially careful when they attempt to send tickets to, or acquire tickets from, people they do not know; however, it is best to avoid dealing with people they are not familiar with altogether.
