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USAA warns fans to be cautious of potential ticket scams ahead of CFP National Championship

By WHIO Staff
Officials are on alert for ticket scammers ahead of the national championship. Photo: WSBTV.com
By WHIO Staff

OHIO — The USAA is warning college football fans about the possible scams they may encounter while buying tickets for the national championship game.

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Ohio State Buckeyes playing and prices soaring, fans are trying to find tickets in Atlanta for a good price, according to our media partners WBNS-10 TV.

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“One of the unique things about the national championship is that you don’t know who the teams are going to be until about 10 days in advance,” USAA spokesperson Daniel Diaz told WBNS-10. “What you see is a lot of tickets, a lot of money, moving hands, and people kind of scrambling to do things at the last minute.”

This last-chance pressure is the perfect environment for scams to be overlooked.

“Scammers love this because people are acting from emotion,” Diaz said. “Scammers love to hit on sense of urgency. They’re trying to get you to act from a place of not thinking. They love to play with your emotions, fear of missing out, calling this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The increase in online ticket sales has made it easier for scammers to sell and create several fake tickets simultaneously, WBNS-10 reported

Fans should consider the following tips while purchasing tickets, or other items, online:

  1. Purchase tickets from trusted vendors: Verify tickets using websites like VerifiedTicketSource.com. Websites like StubHub and Ticketmaster offer guarantees against fraudulent listings.
  2. Be sure to use protected methods of payment: “Use a credit card, use a debit card. You’re gonna have a lot more recourse if a ticket is bad, working with your bank,” Diaz said. Avoid payments that are difficult to recover, including cash, Zelle, wire transfers, or cryptocurrencies.
  3. Double-check refund policies: Use caution when purchasing tickets without clear transaction terms.
  4. Look out for phishing scams: Watch out for suspicious texts or emails, especially ones using official-looking return email addresses and vendor logos.
  5. Be careful when buying items from social media: “If it’s a social media profile, do your homework, see if that person’s legitimate, see if they have friends. If the profile is relatively new or relatively empty, chances are that’s a scammer,” Diaz said.
  6. Be wary of too-good-to-be-true deals: Don’t let a sense of urgency cloud your judgment and do research.

For people who believe they may have been scammed, Diaz recommends acting quickly.

“Talk to your bank immediately. If you paid with a credit card or debit card, the faster the bank knows, the more they’re able to potentially even block the transaction,” Diaz told WBNS-10.

To report fraud to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker, click here.

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