Looking for Tickets on Craigslist? Don’t Buy Them from This Guy
It used to be that when you wanted last minute tickets to a big event in Philadelphia and didn’t feel like dealing with the scalpers outside the venue, you’d call a local broker like Glassman’s or Wanamaker Tickets. But these days, more and more people turn to StubHub and Craigslist. StubHub, where folks are trying to get as much as $10,000 for tonight’s Villanova Final Four game in Houston, backs orders with its FanProtect service, but Craigslist is like the Wild West, as one woman in Philadelphia recently learned the hard way.
Police say that the man seen in this photo scammed the woman into buying fake NCAA basketball tournament tickets. The incident occurred on March 24th, the day before the March Madness tournament came to the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
According to investigators, a 48-year-old woman had responded to a Craigslist ad, agreeing to purchase two NCAA tournament tickets for $150 each. She met the seller that afternoon at 3:45 p.m. at the corner of 18th and Market streets and says that he identified himself as Sebastian Murphy. The woman paid the guy $300, and he turned over the tickets, but when she got to the game, she was told that the tickets were counterfeits.
Police describe the suspect as follows: “Black male, mid to late 20 years-of-age, average height, thin build, medium complected, wearing a white shirt, dark colored pants, white sneakers, and a black and red baseball cap.”
In the surveillance video below, you can see the suspect hanging out on the street and then walking up to the soon-to-be-duped buyer.
“We have systems in place that help us detect a counterfeit ticket at the door,” says Wells Fargo Center spokesperson Ike Richman, who advises buying only from the venue’s box office or an official ticket site. “Otherwise they may be counterfeit tickets, and they will not be honored inside our venue.”
So, if you’re buying tickets on Craigslist and this guy shows up for the final transaction, keep your money in your pocket. Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call Detective Carroll in Central Detectives at 215-686-3093 or the tip line at 215-686-TIPS.
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