If you’re planning to buy Super Bowl tickets, be sure they’re coming from a reputable seller.
Every year around Super Bowl time, we hear stories of scams in which unsuspecting people pay big money for tickets that don’t exist. And the one we’re hearing this year is a doozy.
A man named Ketan Shah was arrested last week and accused of taking $1 million off customers who thought they were buying VIP Super Bowl packages that actually didn’t exist. One of the victims was Shah’s own mother, who lives in Atlanta and thought she was getting tickets to the game. Another victim was a business owner who paid $500,000 thinking he was going to rent out an arena for a Super Bowl event.
Shah disappeared after the victims figured out the sales were a scam. He was a fugitive from justice and law enforcement was struggling to track him down, but he was caught thanks to a tip from a Riverside, California, casino employee. It seems that Shah stayed at the casino, called attention to himself by making lots of demands for special treatment, and drew the ire of a casino employee who wondered why this obnoxious guest was paying for everything with cash. The employee googled him and discovered he was wanted by police, and the casino contacted the authorities. Shah was arrested at the casino.