Countless fans are brokenhearted before Super Bowl XLIX after ticket brokers sold them tickets that they never had.
On Saturday, viewers sent in emails and tweets, reporting they had their dreams stolen before the Seahawks even had the chance to play the New England Patriots in the big game.
When KIRO-TV met Rohan Joseph at Sea-Tac Airport on Saturday night, he was just off the plane from Phoenix, where he'd hoped to watch the Super Bowl.
"It's crappy because the Super Bowl's an awesome event,” Joseph said.
As pumped as he was to watch his Hawks play in the big game, he found out Saturday morning from Phoenix that the Super Bowl ticket he already paid for at face value from teamtix.com didn’t exist.
"It's kind of like predatory lending, I guess – like they sold me tickets they didn't have. That's kind of messed up in my mind,” Joseph said.
Brokers sell tickets to fans early – tickets they don’t have. Closer to the game, when ticket prices usually drop, brokers try to buy tickets to fill the orders. But one check online shows prices have only climbed.
ESPN calls the practice "short selling" and says hundreds of fans are affected.
Fans said the companies have promised to give them their money back.
For many of them, though, it’s little consolation after forking over all that cash to travel and after getting up hopes for the fan experience of a lifetime.
"I used a debit card. It was cash. We're just all screwed. It's a sad reality, it's an awful thing that they did to us," Lorrie, a Seahawks fan, said when KIRO-TV spoke to her in Phoenix.
“They called and said, 'We don’t have your tickets; we’ll give you your money back.' We can’t get our money back until next week, so even if something happens, some miracle happens, there’s no money, there’s no tickets. We’re all screwed.”
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