Posted on 05/26/2005 10:07:37 AM PDT by Semper Paratus
Instead of rocking with Bono and The Edge, hundreds of U2 fans were forced to ``walk away, walk away'' from the sold-out FleetCenter show Tuesday night when their scalped tickets proved bogus.
Some heartbroken fans broke down in tears as they were turned away clutching worthless pieces of paper they shelled out as much as $2,000 for.
``There was a number of people that were just crying,'' recalled Matt Whelan, the FleetCenter's director of ticket operations. ``There were people that didn't know what to do. They were stunned. They had come from all over the world.''
It took Whelan and his staff a while to figure out what was going on, but a pattern soon emerged. The counterfeit tickets mostly were computer printouts bought online from cyberscalpers.
``They were devastated,'' Whelan said. ``They have a tremendous passion for this band, and they just wanted to go in and see the show. It was really tragic for a lot of these people. They were taken advantage of.''
Ticketmaster's ticketFast technology allows online buyers to print out a ticket on their home printer with a unique bar code. The system is credited with helping to stymie scalpers because who in his right mind would hand over $1,500 to someone he doesn't know for a sheet of paper printed from the Internet?
An unscrupulous scalper could print the same ticketFast sheet 100 times or just slap it on a decent copy machine. But the bar code scanners at the venue doors will only accept each bar code once.
``I wouldn't buy a print-your-own-ticket from a stranger for 10 cents. You have no proof of anything,'' said U2 fan and ticket veteran Jim Holzman, president of Ace Ticket Agency in Brookline.
FleetCenter spokesman Jim Delaney agreed.
``On an average concert night we have zero, zilch, zip problems with counterfeit tickets,'' Delaney he said. ``Apparently, U2 has whipped this city into such a frenzy that people are willing to take a risk.''
Boston police reported no scalping arrests outside the arena, and Delaney said only a handful of turned-away fans called yesterday to complain.
``Sadly, I think the people that had these illegitimate tickets realized they've been had,'' he said.
Economic Darwinism at its finest. Or is it ID? Hmmmm.
yep this happened in NYC, one of our bartenders was out only $300 dollars.......
you have to deal with reliable scalpers man......
losers.com
That's "Fools and their money are soon parted."
...pun intended...
That's why I don't deal with scalpers ;)
honestscalpers.com
The "Live" CD will be $14.99.
Bono reminded the "used" that the proceeds would go towards Afican debt relief, and if they cried because they lost 2,000 dollars, they would cry harder if they were born in Ethopia.
... Some heartbroken fans broke down in tears as they were turned away clutching worthless pieces of paper they shelled out as much as $2,000 for....
Wish I was there to taunt and laugh at these young bolsheviks.
If they are sad now, wait until they try and collect their Social Security when they retire!
Since when has U2 been worth crying over, much less shelling out $2,000 a ticket for? Ah, well, a fool and his money......
I wonder if Andy Stephenson from the DUmpster is involved. Same MO....taking advantage of stupid people.
I bought one of these printouts from a scalper for a Mavs playoff game. I made the scalper come up to the ticket window with me to verify it wasn't counterfit.
Sounds to me like they should have gotten into line earlier.
From the article - "But the bar code scanners at the venue doors will only accept each bar code once."
The moral? If ya think your ticket may be counterfeit, get there early! :-)
Ahh, ya beat me by mere cyberseconds (I guess I shoulda got in line earlier, huh?)
"No soup for you."
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