Possible fraudulent ticket sales alert advice from Florida Theatre

Here is a great reminder about fraudulent tickets are being sold through scalper sites.  As you might already know, recently a customer lost money on fraudulent JAGS tickets.  With the fall arts and entertainment season beginning, the historic, nonprofit Florida Theatre reminds its customers and the general public to be on the alert for fake and fraudulent concert and show tickets.

“In addition to protecting consumer wallets from the resale of tickets at ludicrously inflated prices, we are also concerned with protecting consumers from outright fraudulent tickets,” said Florida Theatre President Numa Saisselin.  “Almost every night we see customers who have spent good money on completely fake tickets.”

The historic, nonprofit Florida Theatre’s official web site is floridatheatre.com, this web site is the only official web site and online ticket seller for the theatre.  Tickets can be purchased in person at the theatre’s box office, located inside the theatre.  The theatre's official phone number is 904-355-ARTS (2787), this is the only official number for telephone sales.

Kathleen Petrillo-Bair, Box Office Manager of the Florida Theatre, says, “All customers have to remember is two things: our phone number, 904-355-ARTS, and our website, floridatheatre.com. If you transact your business directly with the theatre, you can’t go wrong.”

If you purchase tickets from anyone other than floridatheatre.com or 355-ARTS, you are buying from a ticket broker, and are paying more than you need to.  Ticket brokers make it appear that they have “special access” to the best seats, but all they’re doing is purchasing tickets from the theatre and reselling them to you at inflated prices.

Even when a ticket broker is operating within the law, you still pay more than you need to, and not one cent of the markup goes to the artist or the theatre, who invested the time and money to make the show possible.

If you purchase from a ticket broker and there is anything wrong with your order, the theatre cannot help you, because you did not purchase your tickets from the theatre. If a show is cancelled or rescheduled, the theatre will always stand behind the tickets it sold, but you may have trouble collecting a refund from a ticket scalper or broker.

Sadly, there are also unscrupulous vendors who will sell you outright fraudulent tickets, and when this happens, the theatre cannot help you.

“Protect yourself from scams and scalpers, do not be fooled by imitators, and do not pay more than you have to,” said Saisselin.  “Ticket scalpers will use commercially available software to digitally copy a ticket, and sell the same seat two or three times.  The first ticket holder to arrive is going to be scanned in the door, and the subsequent arrivals will be rejected.  Or, con artists will electronically create a brand new and outright fraudulent ticket, which will be rejected by the scanners at our front door.  In either case, the theatre is unable to issue the customer a refund, because the theatre did not receive the customer’s money.”

Even when you think a show is sold out, it’s always worth a phone call to the Florida Theatre ticket office at 904-355-ARTS (2787) to see if tickets are available.  The historic, nonprofit Florida Theatre is sponsored by Community First Credit Union.