Buying Bucks tickets? Protect your investment

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Watching the Milwaukee Bucks live in the NBA Finals is on many fans’ bucket lists, but it will cost you. 

Matthew Rados is senior operations manager for GameTime, a ticket app that specializes in last-minute tickets. He says just getting in the building will cost nearly $500, but courtside seats are going for much more.

“The most expensive seats may be running closer to $21-thousand,” he said. 

Twenty-one thousand dollars is (used) Rolls Royce money, 

It would even buy you a house on Walnut Street in Milwaukee, with $5-thousand to spend on closing costs and decorations. 

Whatever you spend on a ticket, you’ll want to protect that investment. Jim Temmer, with the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin, says ticket scams are one of their top 5 scams for summer.

And if you are looking for Bucks tickets, scammers are looking for you.

“Watch out on social media, (Facebook) Marketplace, Craigslist, any of that stuff. They can be fake tickets,” he said. 

The only way to be absolutely sure your ticket is legit -- use a licensed ticket broker. If you do decide to buy from an individual, politely ask for proof that they bought the tickets, and ask to make the transaction at the Bucks ticket office -- there you can at least verify the ticket you are buying is real before you pay. 

But some real tickets are still part of a scam, sold multiple times to unsuspecting people. You will not know you bought duplicate tickets until you are turned away at the arena.

Rados says GameTime’s app prevents duplicate sales.

“We have some technology built into the app to prevent barcodes from reappearing,” Rados said.

GameTime also guarantees that if someone buys a ticket on their platform, and are somehow not let in, their customer service team will get them in the building -- possibly an important feature when the NBA Finals are involved.

“Because that is worst possible user scenario, so GameTime puts in extra effort to make sure that’s not occurring on our platform,” Rados said. 

Not every ticket listed on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace is a scam, but scammers are good at disguising themselves as legit. If you do score tickets for the next big game, don’t post a picture of them on social media, a criminal could take that picture off the internet to use or sell your ticket.