DENVER — Outside Ball Arena on Saturday afternoon, excitement filled the air as fans of all ages could be spotted decked out in their favorite team's gear. However, for a group of Brigham Young University (BYU) fans, they were instead searching desperately for a way inside after they had been scammed with fake tickets.
Joey Hill, a junior at BYU, explained since there was no school on Friday, he and his three friends decided to make the drive. Hill says the have been following the team all year and have gone to all the home games so this was a game they could not miss.
"We're so excited and so we looked at tickets, we looked at a couple of different places," explained Hill. "We found some on Facebook Marketplace that were a good deal, and we messaged thought they were legitimate tickets then they weren't."
After completing this long drive, Hill and his friends were ready to cheer on their cougars and experience the thrill of March Madness. However, when they went to sit down, they realized the upsetting situation.
"We walked all the way in. We went up to the ticket people, tried to scan the tickets, it didn't work. They took us to someone else, didn't work there. They took us to someone else. They talked with us. We tried to show them which seats we were in and they said, someone's already in those seats, sorry, there's nothing we can do and we don't blame them," Hill said.
Kyle Bird, Hill's friend and also a BYU student, explained they thought the tickets were legitimate and thought they were being cautious. He said they sent money for the first ticket to make sure it was good before paying for the others. However, they would come to realize they were scammed.
"We went over to the ticket help office and then they scanned the ticket and said, "Oh, well, these are already checked in, like someone's in these seats' and we gave him the name of the guy and she said, 'that's not who these are sold under,' so we just went outside and we were ready to move on, but Joey's pretty determined, so he made some more stuff happen."
Hill's parents posted on CougarBoard explaining the situation that had happened, the kind and loyal BYU community stepped up to help these fans get into the game sending Venmo's to Hill.
"I think BYU fans are amazing. Obviously, fans for every team are amazing. I love our BYU fans, though. I love the people that they are. I think they're great. They're sending us money, hoping that we can get in, hoping that we can go watch a wonderful basketball game, watch BYU hopefully win, that's the goal," said Hill.
While these fans experienced their own type of madness at this game, they also had their own Cinderella story to tell. Hill was able to buy tickets to go inside with one of his friends and even got to see a victory as well.
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