Posted Apr. 30, 2005
Packers ticket sites draw flags from fans
20 complaints filed with state over last 2 years
By Robert Imrie
The Associated Press
WAUSAU - When Rebecca Green sought two tickets to see her beloved Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field two seasons ago, what was supposed to be an easy Internet purchase for $319 from her Arizona home turned into a nightmare.
After weeks of waiting for the tickets, she learned four days before the game that they wouldn't be available. She and her husband - with plane tickets already in hand - had to buy scalped tickets for another $275.
"I was in tears," she recalled in a telephone interview from her Tucson home. "First I cried, then I started throwing things."
Her plight is documented in what the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection calls a new problem - scams involving Packers tickets that lead to formal consumer complaints to the agency.
In the past two years, people have filed 20 complaints about ticket problems, said Bob Zaspel, an investigator in the agency's Green Bay office. Until 2003, the agency hadn't received any complaints about Packers tickets.
"A lot of it is the emergence of the Internet and the technology. You got the things on eBay and the instant messaging," he said. "It just opened up a whole new avenue for people to offer products for sale or to use those avenues to scam people."
In seeking help from Zaspel's office, Cindy Cutts complained about two tickets she bought over the Internet that never arrived. "All I was trying to do was buy my husband a great present for his birthday," the Wisconsin woman wrote in her complaint.
Plugging in the words "Green Bay Packers tickets" into the Google search engine generated 684,000 Internet Web sites.
"Obviously, there is a potential for scams and rip-offs," Zaspel said. "Is it a big problem? It has a potential to be. There is a high demand for people wanting to see this football team play."
As the May 15 deadline nears for season-ticket holders to pay for next season's games, the consumer protection agency warned desperate fans to be wary of cons in advertising online and in classified ads.
Most of the complaints received by Zaspel's agency involved an Internet site called Lambeau-Tickets.com. The site's owner was originally from New London but lived in Minnesota, Zaspel said.
Zaspel knows the problem is bigger than the number of complaints suggests. Only 10 percent to 25 percent of people who are defrauded or bilked will take action that leads to a formal complaint with his agency, he said.