JMU football ticket scammers are loose. Here’s how to avoid them.

ones with the tickets.

By JACKSON HEPHNER The Breeze

JMU football is less than a month away from opening its season at home against Bucknell on Sept. 2. But while fans search for tickets, scammers spread their social media posts in hopes of profiting off the increased demand.

Single-game tickets were put on sale for the public July 5, while Duke Club members have been able to purchase them since June 28. Despite tickets being available directly through JMU Athletics, many fans turned to secondhand sources instead. While some have gone to apps such as SeatGeek and StubHub, others have mulled social media sites, particularly JMUrelated Facebook groups, to find buyers and sellers — where scammers are active.

Carol Benassi is the admin of JMU Nation, a Facebook group with almost 28,000 members, as well as JMU Nation Ticket Exchange, a Facebook group of over 4,100 that allows fans to sell and purchase tickets as well as report common scammers. also a member of another group that contains admins from various other college groups who inform each other on signs to look out for when dealing with scammers.

Here are some common signs of ticket scams: Selling season tickets individually: Benassi said in a series of messages sent to The Breeze that scammers have been known to claim that they bought season tickets but are selling each game individually. While this is a common sign, it is possible for seasonticket holders to transfer their individual game tickets, JMU Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Kevin Warner said in a July 24 email.

If a seller claims that they already have tickets or parking passes in their possession, they’re lying. Warner told The Breeze in a text message Aug. 16 that the department is working on deployment, and official information on accessing tickets will be communicated “within 24 hours.”

Involving a third party: Scammers might also direct you to contact someone else who didn’t make the post, claiming they’re the

Grammar mistakes: Warning signs can be found sometimes just in how the message is typed out. Bad grammar, clunky wording or statements such as “trust me” can all be warning.

In one exchange, for example, a scammer told her about how crowded JMU’s game against U.Va. on Sept. 9 would be, she turned to the JMU Nation Ticket Exchange group.

There, she found an account who seemed to be a legitimate seller. The scammer alleged to be selling her season tickets as individual games, a common red flag. The on jmusports.evenue.com. But this time, the scammer wanted to send the ticket through her email. Parts of the victim’s conversation with the scammer were deleted, she said, but The Breeze was able to obtain screenshots of these messages as well as others sent later in the conversation.

The scammer also tried to negotiate the price, a detail that the scamming victim admitted should have tipped her off because “anybody selling their ticket would have a set price because she knows how much the tickets are worth.” of anonymity to prevent her son, a JMU student, from knowing about the scam.

The Breeze didn’t obtain screenshots that verified these messages.

Once the price was agreed upon, the scamming victim sent her email address and JMU tickets account number. The scammer then asked for the money up front and sent the scamming victim the email address for a Zelle account that she claimed belonged to her daughter.

At this point, the victim says that the scammer asked her repeatedly if she had made the payment, ignoring the scamming victim’s questions when she tried to ask clarification questions about the transaction.

Once the payment was made and the scamming victim sent a screenshot of the confirmation, the scammer went silent.

The Breeze wasn’t able to obtain screenshots to verify these While waiting, the scamming victim began to email the address linked to the Zelle account. After an hour, the scamming victim went back to Facebook and asked the scammer for an update.

She said she bought tickets from Facebook the previous season, so when a friend of hers

During the scamming victim’s previous experiences successfully buying second-hand tickets, she said, the tickets had been transferred directly to her account

According to the scamming victim, the scammer claimed their daughter was in class, despite it being late May, adding that the victim should stop sending emails to the address registered to the Zelle account provided by the scammer. Screenshots obtained by The Breeze verified these messages.

The victim soon found out why — the Zelle account belonged to a third party who had received the money and sent the scammer Bitcoins in exchange.

The Breeze spoke to another scamming victim whose story was eerily similar, who, again, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to embarrassment of the situation and the chance of retaliation from the scammer. The Breeze reviewed screenshots of $120 of

Venmo purchases sent by the scamming victim that corroborated her story; however, The Breeze couldn’t review every message from the scammer because some messages were deleted, the scamming victim said.

She said she saw a similar post back in May from a supposed season-ticket holder on the “James Madison University Class of 2027Parents” Facebook group.

“It was a painful experience because I felt so vulnerable, too,” the scamming victim said.

The admin of this group is an account called “Humans of University — Parents and Families.” This account is also an admin in dozens of identical groups that are intended for different universities, including “Old Dominion University Class of 2027 — Parents,” “Virginia Tech — Parents & Families” and “University of Virginia Class of 2025 — Parents.”

The Breeze emailed Humans of University for a statement about the ticket scams, and the respondent did not provide their full name, despite multiple requests, in correspondence with our publication deadline. The story will be updated online should The Breeze receive a statement with a first and last name.

In the JMU group, a scammer made a post claiming to be a season-ticket holder who was selling tickets for each individual game, even including parking passes to some of them. Hoping to get tickets to the popular Family Weekend game against South Alabama, which is already sold out, the scamming victim messaged the scammer, who proceeded to give her fake seat numbers and asked for half of the money upfront. There was no price listed on the post itself, but the scammer claimed she was “flexible” and offered the scamming victim $60 each for four tickets, plus one parking pass.

Like in the first story, the scammer asked the scamming victim to Venmo the scammer’s daughter. The Breeze reviewed this message.

According to the scamming victim, the scammer tried to gain the sympathy of the scamming victim after the money was sent, saying that they’ve been burned by buyers before, calling themselves a “God-loving woman” and insisting that the scamming victim send them the rest of the money.

She refused, and when she tried to warn others in the group about the scam, she said the scammer’s post was taken down. She found another post in the group with the same format as the first.

Why buy tickets on Facebook?

There were plenty of red flags in both scamming victims’ stories, but it begs the question why second-hand tickets were sought in the first place. Both scamming victims cited a few reasons — notably, the expected scarcity of tickets for the U.Va. and South Alabama games.

The first scamming victim also cited the desire to help out a fellow fan by unloading their unwanted tickets, not wanting to purchase season tickets, and also a lack of information on when tickets would be available and when fans would receive the tickets they purchased. She said the last reason may have stemmed from the fact that she didn’t pay as much attention to announcements from JMU about when tickets would be available.

Warner, the JMU Athletics spokesperson, said the ticketing office recommends that fans buy their tickets from the JMU Ticket Office, SeatGeek — JMU’s authorized secondary ticket marketplace — or from someone they know. Any other option involves risk, and the office can’t verify the authenticity of the tickets. However, season-ticket holders can transfer singlegame tickets because of the department’s new partnership with SeatGeek.

Despite her difficulties in the past, the first scamming victim said from now on she will purchase tickets directly from JMU, and if they aren’t available from the school, then she simply won’t go to the game.

The second victim bought tickets directly from JMU to the South Alabama game when they went on sale and added that she’s still willing to buy tickets from trustworthy sources on Facebook.

“I’m going to be very cautious,” the second scamming victim said.

Where to buy JMU tickets legitimately

So far this season, tickets to some games already seem to be scarce. On July 7, JMU Athletics announced that season and single-game tickets for the South Alabama game were sold out, but singlegame tickets for the other five games are still available as of Aug. 15. Tickets can be purchased directly from JMU at jmusports. evenue.net. This is also the same site used to sell men’s and women’s basketball tickets.

All student tickets will be made available 14 days before each home game. Like regular admission tickets, they can be reserved at jmusports.evenue.net. Each one is free, but are only available in singlegame options. If you wish to purchase a student guest ticket, you can do so when reserving your free ticket.

Free student tickets must be used by the student who reserved their ticket. They cannot be resold or transferred, and doing so may lead to your ticket being canceled. Students can also have their free ticket privileges revoked if they reserve their student tickets but do not show up to the game twice.

This is a developing story. The Breeze will update it at breezejmu.org as it receives new information. You can also find our anonymity policy at www. breezejmu.org/volunteer/policies.html