Warning issued over fraudulent Warriors tickets

OAKLAND, Calif. (KTVU) - Warriors officials have a warning about fraudulent warriors tickets. The team says some fans trying to get hold of the hottest tickets in town are ending up getting burned and so are fans who are trying to sell their tickets.

Team  officials say as the Warriors enjoy success, so do thieves trying to take advantage of fans.
　
Getting those coveted tickets to go to a Warriors game brings excitement especially during playoffs.  But this is also the time when ticket scams increase.

"We tend to see a slight uptick during the playoffs as tickets get more expensive.  It gives people more incentive to do these nefarious things," says Brandon Schneider, Warriors Senior VP of Business Development and Ticket Sales.

On  average, the Warriors say they see about 40 fraudulent tickets per game.

"What that means is people go to third party websites. There are a lot of websites that sell tickets that offer different guarantees.

Unfortunately, they can't guarantee what you really want, which is that your ticket will work," says Schneider.

Several fans who've been scammed tell KTVU they met up with the thieves through Craigslist.

 Andy Ramos of San Jose was one of those fans. He spoke with KTVU via Skype.

"I paid $350 for the fake tickets. I paid cash. When I got   to the game for comparable seats I paid another $400 each so I paid another $800 at the ticket office to go to the game," said Ramos.

He says the seller, a man dressed in a suit here at Embarcadero 3 in San Francisco who gave him a computer printout of two tickets. 

"I  asked him if they were legit.  He said yes..I'm a season ticket holder and can't make this game so that's why

I'm selling them It was really believable to me." 

But when Ramos got to Oracle Arena, he soon found out he had been scammed.

"We just tried to go through the front gate like everybody else.  Usually when they scan your ticket, you get a green light.  Ours had a big red X on it.  That's when the guy told us we had to go to the box office," Ramos.

He  says he had previously bought tickets for other sporting events a handful of times without problems.
Ramos says he was trying to get better seats at a price he could afford.

"I thought I was going to get a good deal.  I was almost paying half the price for the two tickets," says Ramos.

Team officials say they've seen a new scam...targetting legitimate ticket sellers. The Warriors say they've seen 15 incidents in recent months where fans selling their tickets on third party websites accepted payment using the Venmo app and later had the payment cancelled after they'd transferred the tickets.

Warriors say their best advice:  "If  you go to www.Warriors.com, none of this can happen."

Ramos hopes his bad experience will prevent others from falling victim to thieves. 

"Hopefully no one follows in my footstep. you might as well get the real tickets through NBA.com," says Ramos.

Team officials say if you go to Warriors.com, there's a phone number that connects fans with their staff to answer questions.

Ramos says the Warriors help a special event for him and other fans who were scammed. 

He says that took some of the sting off what happened.

The Warriors gave them tickets to another game.