KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — There are just three home games left in the season for the Tennessee Vols. Saturday's homecoming game is sold out, but there are tickets for re-sale online. However, ticket officials said buying them there comes at a great risk.
Father Donnie Burch from Augusta, Georgia, tried buying tickets to the Vols game so his teenage son could go to the big game. He was scammed out of hundreds of dollars.
"It seemed legit and I think a lot of them on there are," he said.
Some are, just not the tickets he bought. Burch tried to buy a couple on Facebook from a woman claiming to have four of them.
"She says, 'Ok, how about $100,' and I said, 'Sure, you know, that'd be great at that point.' Don't get me wrong they were still $300, but $100 wasn't out of the question," Burch said.
He said he transferred the scammer through Zelle and that's when, he said, the excuses started rolling in.
"I'm talking to my husband and I don't see the transfer," Burch said, quoting the woman. "She said, 'My husband is at work, as soon as he gets home!'"
It soon fizzled down to silence, and communication with the scammer went cold.
"I keep thinking, 'It's a scam, it's a scam,' then I think, 'No it's not, no it's not,'" he said. "I've got a couple buddies in law enforcement, one with the FBI, so I reached out to them and eventually just cut the rope that evening and said this is a scam."
This is one of several cases. A Knoxville man who asked to remain anonymous told 10News he was scammed in a similar way. He said he lost $250 to the Facebook crook.
"I was purchasing two tickets for $500 each. I was skeptical about sending money via Zelle so the scammer recommended sending half for one and she would send me one ticket then I could send the other half," he said.
But the transaction didn't go how he'd wanted it to. He was not only cheated out of the money but the game, too.
"Needless to say I never received any tickets and the scammer somehow deleted our Facebook conversation," he said.
Better Business Bureau CEO Tony Binkley said ticket scams are happening more and more. The victim pool is far larger than just Knoxville since fans come from across the country to watch UT play.
"If you're not standing right next to them when you get that ticket transferred to you, there's a chance that ticket might not be real," Binkley said. "If you're going to buy a ticket these days, since they're all electronic, mostly electronic, you really have to trust the source that it's coming from."
It's a mistake Burch said he won't make again. He ended up forking out even more cash for a real ticket, but he said it was worth it.
"I lost my mind for a moment, started making decisions emotionally instead of rationally so we lost out but we ended up biting the bullet," Burch said. "In his words, 'I'll never experience another sporting event like that in my life."
The BBB said digital tickets may be an effort to add security to the process but crooks can still fool buyers. It warns fans to never share their ticket barcode or ticket information and to buy only from verified sources.