TOLEDO, Ohio — Annetta Pawlak was excited to see a show at the Croswell Opera House with her granddaughter, but her mood quickly changed when she discovered how much she paid for tickets.
Pawlak, of Temperance, Mich., is a repeat customer of the Adrian theater. When "Jersey Boys" came to town earlier this summer, she Googled around and clicked on a website that appeared to be legitimate.
What she didn't know is she was purchasing two tickets from a third-party reseller and not the Croswell itself. The total price? $466.95 -- more than five times the face value amount of the venue's priciest tickets.
"I ordered two tickets for my granddaughter and I for her birthday," Pawlak said. "The next day I received a receipt saying my tickets had been processed. And then they gave me a price that was astronomical. I called the Croswell and explained what happened. They were very helpful and told me this is something that has happened before and I shouldn’t be too upset of being caught."
If the outlandish price wasn't punishment enough, Pawlak then learned the tickets she purchased weren't even valid. The printed-out tickets contained the word "FULL" instead of a dollar amount -- a common trick among resellers.
"I would like to say I was really surprised, but I think everybody’s going to get their turn at it," Pawlak said. "This was my turn. It seems like it’s happening a lot. I think it can happen to anyone."
According to Jere Righter, artistic director at the Croswell, Pawlak's tale is all too familiar.
The theater has heard from numerous patrons about similar issues. Righter said there are a couple of common tactics used by third-party sellers.
In many cases, resellers don't actually have tickets in hand when they sell them. Instead, they advertise tickets for three, four, five or even 10 times higher than face value, wait for someone to buy those tickets at that price, then purchase face value tickets on their own and pocket the difference.
It's also common for third-party sites to purchase advertisements on Google and other search engines to make their site appear above the venues in search results. For example, a Google search for "Mary Poppins Croswell tickets" shows users sponsored advertisements for Vivid Seats, eventticketcenter.com and tickets-center.com before the Croswell's official website.
Tickets-Center.com is the site Pawlak used.
"It leads [customers] to buying tickets through a third party, which then charges them rates far exceeding our highest ticket price, which for Broadway season is just $44," Righter said. "It is after they make that sale that those resellers go to our website and buy the tickets. So they’re paying our fair and reasonable price and the customer is paying that really high rate. They’re buying those tickets on spec. It's just so painful, so hurtful."
Righter said she has seen people spend as much as $900 to see a show at the Croswell. She said it's rare that a show completely sells out, meaning face value tickets are available for most shows at the venue.
The Croswell comped Pawlak two tickets and wrote a letter to her credit company asking them to refund her payment. That charge remains contested.
Huntington Center general manager Steve Miller said he has seen the same issues at the downtown Toledo arena.
For example, face value tickets to country star Jason Aldean's October show are available in section 107 for $169-$179. However, tickets for the same section are being advertised for as much as $1,100 on SeatGeek, which is the first website that appears in Google search results for "Jason Aldean Toledo tickets."
Miller said scalpers "buy their way to the top" with advertisements.
"If you go to a scalper site, you’ll never see the actual ticket," he said. "They’ll give you a section and a row, but they’ll never give you a seat number. A lot of times, they don’t have the ticket in hand yet. If they have that row, they can try to get the ticket that’s close to that. That’s happened to us in the past."
Technically, these types of practices by resellers and scalpers are legal. Language at the very bottom of tickets-center.com says:
"Tickets-Center.com is privately owned and is not affiliated with any box office or venue. The site displays resale marketplace tickets. Prices are set by sellers and may be above or below face value."
Miller said the Huntington Center has tried to contact these sites through attorneys, but getting answers has proven to be difficult.
"We can never get an answer from anybody," Miller said. "It would be nice to go to Columbus and work with other facilities in the state of Ohio and maybe try to lobby for [legal action]. The hard part is when you have internet stuff going on, we don’t know where these people are based. Even if the Ohio legislature passed a law, we’re not sure it would be enforceable because of the locations where these scalpers are."
Both Miller and Righter stressed the importance of making sure you're visiting the official website of a venue before purchasing tickets, or visiting the box office in person. They also encouraged consumers to use a credit card and not a debit card.
Official ticketing websites for area venues can be found below:
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