CALGARY – A Calgary ticket scalper is defending the business, saying it’s not people like him who are scamming hockey fans with fake playoff tickets.
Brian Shelley has been a professional scalper for over 20 years, travelling to locations all over Canada and the United States – and even visiting London, England for the 2012 Olympics.
He says he’s concerned about the bad reputation that scalpers get, especially with an abundance of bogus Calgary Flames tickets being sold online.
“We actually provide a good service,” says Shelley. “What happens is, people arrive with extra tickets they’re stuck with, and there’s other people arriving that don’t have tickets. With legitimate scalpers, we’re there to help.”
Shelley says when he sells a ticket, if the buyer tries it and isn’t allowed into an event, he will give them a full refund.
“In actuality, we’re brokering tickets. ‘Scalping’ is just a name that’s been around forever.”
Shelley says the bogus tickets are coming from criminals who come to town to take advantage of sell-out concerts or big events like playoff hockey.
“Then they leave town or they disappear… and nobody can seem to track them down.”
“We’re not the ones putting the bad tickets out on the street. We’d never do that because we’d ruin our business and reputation.”
WAIT… I THOUGHT TICKET SCALPING WAS ILLEGAL?
Actually, it’s not. In 2009, the provincial government did away with anti-scalping laws by removing the Alberta Amusements Act from the books.
You can resell a ticket for whatever value you want, even if it’s higher than the original price.
TIPS FOR AVOIDING SCAMMERS
Shelley says the best advice he can give to avoid being scammed by a bad sale is to avoid paper ticket print-outs if you can, and look for ‘hard copy’ tickets.
The Calgary Flames says there are four primary ways to purchase authentic Calgary Flames tickets:
– The Calgary Flames ticket lottery
– The NHL ticket exchange
– Sport Chek locations or Sportcheck.ca
– Calgary Co-op locations
“The only way you can guarantee yourself those tickets will work and get you into the game, is by buying from one of those four locations,” says Calgary Flames VP of Sales Rollie Cyr.
WATCH: Calgary Flames VP of Sales Rollie Cyr joins Global Calgary live from the Saddledome to discuss how to get tickets to playoff games.
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