49ers fans, don’t let fake tickets keep you out. Here’s how to avoid being a victim
Kickoff is just hours away. The car is packed, gassed up and ready to go. Great seats are waiting – sure, the price was steep but it was worth it.
Only one problem: the tickets are fake.
“It’s the worst feeling when you have to tell somebody” they can’t get into the game, said Jim Mercurio, 49ers executive vice president of stadium operations and general manager of Levi’s Stadium, the site of Sunday’s 49ers-Green Bay Packers NFC championship. “It’s a terrible way to deliver the news.”
Mercurio and the 49ers are fighting a different foe off the field: Illegal vendors pushing fake tickets and counterfeit merchandise on playoff-starved fans.
It’s big money, big business – and a big problem for America’s most popular sport.
Protect yourself from being scammed
Hundreds of thousands of fake tickets and bogus items – tens of millions of dollars worth of fake tickets and jerseys, T-shirts, caps and jackets – are seized each year by federal and local agencies, say authorities who work together with the NFL and its teams to cast a wide net against merchandise fraud.
“The concern for folks is that there’s opportunistic people out there – people who are trying to sell you tickets on site or on a third (party) site. Be mindful and wary about that as consumers because you won’t know until you get to the gate,” Mercurio said. “You’re a victim now. That’s the frustrating part for us.”
But fans can protect themselves.
Ticket buyers should only purchase from authorized dealers such as 49ers.com/tickets or Ticketmaster.com/49ers, said team spokesman Roger Hacker.
“That doesn’t completely eliminate” fraud, Mercurio said. Ticket buyers should steer clear of scalpers and sales through online sites like Craigslist, he said.
Shop at team store and authorized retail locations. Avoid flea markets, online auctions and street vendors. Watch for irregular markings or ripped tags on apparel. Look at the price tag, say U.S. customs officials. Low prices and two-for-one deals are red flags. So are higher price points.
At Levi’s Stadium, the 49ers are staying a step ahead of sellers peddling counterfeit tickets by going exclusively virtual. The team prints out just several hundred paper – or “hard” – tickets out of the approximately 70,000 issued per contest, Hacker said.
Security and undercover officers are also on the lookout for vendors hawking illegal merchandise.
They were busy last week in the 49ers’ divisional round matchup vs. the Minnesota Vikings. Nearly 20 vendors were shut down, others were arrested and several hundred counterfeit items seized outside Levi’s Stadium during the 27-10 victory, Mercurio said before adding, “But how many more are we not catching? It’s a real problem.”
A league-wide issue
Federal and local law enforcement who gathered in Atlanta last January in the days ahead of Super Bowl LIII showed just how lucrative and extensive the illegal counterfeit rings have become.
Authorities in 2018 seized more than 285,000 items valued at $24 million, leading to 28 arrests, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said at the time.
Another 13 people were indicted in Pennsylvania federal court January 2019 in an elaborate multi-state counterfeit ticket trafficking scheme that stretched several years. The ring advertised and sold the fake tickets to some of the nation’s biggest sporting events from Super Bowls and College Football Playoff games to FIFA World Cup qualifiers and the annual Army-Navy game.
Agents in 2017 launched a similar crackdown on illegally imported counterfeit sports- and entertainment-related merchandise before Super Bowl LII, arresting 65 people and confiscating nearly 172,000 items worth $15.7 million.
Just months ago, federal Homeland Security investigators teamed with NFL, state and local officials to seize some $11,000 in fake apparel at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in September during the Raiders’ home opener.
The agents’ haul was a relatively small one, mainly T-shirts and caps carrying the Raiders’ iconic silver-and-black shield logo. But the seizures were part of a larger trend of counterfeit goods flooding the U.S. market – about $1.4 billion worth of merchandise from apparel to electronics to jewelry had the goods been genuine, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
It’s a problem that goes beyond knockoff goods, the 49ers’ Mercurio said, pointing to the criminal underground behind the counterfeit market.
“If you think about the issues that it’s related to, it’s an underground crime ring. The people producing it are taking advantage of an underground of folks and you’re supporting groups of folks who are (flouting) regulations and laws,” Mercurio said. “As a consumer, be mindful of what you’re supporting because you want 10 or 20 percent off. That nefarious group is who you’re supporting.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 3:47 PM.
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