Having just transferred 

from 
Plekhanov 
Russian 

University of Economics in 
Moscow, Russia, LSA junior 
Veronika Volevich was look-
ing forward to attending her 
first football game in The 
Big House. She made a post 
in the “Buying and Selling 
Tickets UMich” Facebook 
group on Sept. 4 requesting 
that anyone selling tickets to 
the football games on Sept. 
11 or Sept. 18 comment or 
contact her privately.

Within a few minutes, 

Volevich said she got a mes-

sage from Facebook user 

“Elena Beretta.” Beretta told 
Volevich she had tickets for 
both games in Section 31, 
Row 10 and asked Volevich 
to make an offer. Volevich 
suggested $40 per ticket and 
said 
Beretta 
immediately 

accepted.

But an hour after Volevich 

electronically paid Beretta 
for the tickets, Volevich said 
she still had not received 
them. When Beretta stopped 
responding to her private 
messages, Volevich realized 
it had been a scam.

“Then I decided to make 

a post about (Beretta) in the 
(Buying and Selling) group,” 
Volevich said. “I received 
three or four messages from 
other people saying … she 
had used the same exact 
strategy on them.”

Associate Athletic Direc-

tor Kurt Svoboda confirmed 
in an email to The Michigan 
Daily that this is the first 
year that student football 
tickets have been solely dis-
tributed online. Ice hockey 
and basketball student tick-
ets have been virtual since 
2019.

“We do not have plans to 

return to physical tickets in 
the future but we will con-
tinue to follow best prac-
tices within the industry 
to provide security within 
the 
ticketing 
landscape,” 

Svoboda 
wrote. 
“Mobile 

ticketing is proven to be far 
more safe and effective than 
paper tickets as it relates to 
authenticity.”

Volevich is not the only 

student who has recently 
been scammed while try-
ing to buy student tickets 
through social media.

After talking to several 

other students with similar 
experiences to Volevich, The 
Michigan Daily found three 
major warning signs to look 
out for — and ways to miti-
gate the risks — when trying 
to buy student tickets online.

“I know I’ll never get my 

money back,” Volevich said. 
“I just want to warn other 
people so this doesn’t hap-
pen to them.”

Red Flag 1: Pressuring 

the buyer to pay the full 
cost before sending the 
ticket

LSA sophomore Audrey 

Beach was scammed on Aug. 
21 while trying to purchase 
an entire season of student 
tickets through the Buying 
and Selling Facebook group. 
Beach said a scammer by the 
name of “Reilly Kat” liked 
Beach’s post in the group, 
so Beach reached out to 
her to purchase the tickets. 
Once they agreed on a price, 
Beach said Kat told her to set 
up a Zelle account and trans-
fer the money immediately if 
she wanted the tickets.

“She was definitely pres-

suring me into paying right 
away, like as soon as pos-
sible, and to get a different 
payment app that was better 
for her,” Beach said.

Beach said she was out 

shopping 
with 
her 
fam-

ily at the time and told Kat 
she wanted to wait until she 
got home to set up a Zelle 
account on her laptop. Kat 
insinuated she would sell 

the tickets to someone else 
if Beach took too long, sug-
gesting she use her phone to 
transfer the payment if she 
was serious about buying.

Since there were no live 

spectators at football games 
last fall, this was Beach’s 
first time purchasing tick-
ets to a U-M football game. 
She said if she had known 
more about how tickets were 
transferred, the value of 
season tickets or the tricks 
scammers 
traditionally 

used, she would have been 
more careful.

“If I had that experience 

last year, if I had ever been 
to a football game … I defi-
nitely would have had a bet-
ter understanding of what I 
was trying to buy and how to 
do it safely,” Beach said.

To protect both buyers 

and sellers from losing the 
full value of the tickets, 
Beach and other scam vic-
tims suggested sending half 
of the cost before receiving 
the tickets and the other half 
after.

Red Flag 2: Asking that 

money be sent through 
new payment applications

All of the scam victims 

interviewed by The Daily 
said 
the 
PayPal-owned 

application Venmo — a mid-
dle ground between a pay-
ment transfer service and 
social media platform — is 
their preferred interface for 
virtual 
payments. 
Venmo 

appears frequently in lists 
of the applications college 
students use on a daily basis, 
and a third of Venmo users 
are between the ages of 18 
and 24.

Volevich 
said 
Beretta 

refused to use Venmo when 
they were discussing how 
the payment would be sent.

“(Beretta) said she would 

prefer either Zelle or Apple 
Pay,” Volevich said. “I found 
that weird since everyone 
has Venmo.”

Volevich said she consent-

ed to using Apple Pay since 
she had used it previously to 
make contactless payments 
at local businesses. When 
a pop-up warning screen 
appeared 
indicating 
that 

this particular Apple Pay 
transfer might not be safe, 
Volevich said, she assumed 
Apple Pay flagged any non-
commercial 
transfer 
and 

dismissed it.

“When 
I 
started 
the 

Apple Pay transaction, I was 
warned by Apple that this 
might be fraud,” Volevich 
said. “I assumed that since 
I’m transferring money to 
another person, Apple Pay 
might just suspect fraud, so 
I didn’t pay attention to it.”

Besides paying attention 

to explicit security messages 
from payment apps, Volev-
ich and other scam victims 
recommended 
telling 
the 

seller they are not comfort-
able using certain payment 
methods they are less famil-
iar with. They also sug-
gested that if the buyer and 
seller can arrange to meet 
in person while the trans-
action takes place, it would 
increase transparency and 
reduce scam risks.

“I would ask the (seller) 

to meet in person,” Volevich 
said. “Since all (students) 
live in Ann Arbor mostly, it’s 
not that hard to meet in per-
son.”

Red Flag 3: Facebook 

account is not active and 
person’s student status is 
unclear

If they had paid better 

attention to key details on 
the 
scammer’s 
Facebook 

pages, all of the scam vic-
tims said they might not 
have been so quick to send 
money to strangers.

2019 
University 
alum 

Zena Shunnar told The Daily 
when she was a student, she 
had never heard of scams 

involving tickets to U-M 
sporting events. But when 
she was scammed while try-
ing to buy three tickets over 
Facebook from a “fellow 
alum” to the Sept. 11 game, 
Shunnar said she found out 
the hard way that things had 
changed.

Shunnar messaged “Sim-

one Williams” who claimed 
she had tickets available. 
Williams’ profile mentioned 
she 
had 
recently 
moved 

to Paris and had studied 
at École Polytechnique de 
Milan in Milan, Italy. Shun-
nar said she thought this was 
odd, but gave Williams the 
benefit of the doubt, suppos-
ing Williams wanted to sell 
her tickets because of her 
current residence in Europe.

“I kind of made up the 

story in my head on why she 
could be selling these tickets 
and why it says she lives in 
Paris now,” Shunnar said.

LSA senior Julia Smoot 

said 
the 
individual 
who 

scammed her had very few 
Facebook friends and only 
had posted a couple of times 
— with each post receiving 
zero likes. Similar to Shun-
nar, Smoot said she had also 
purchased paper tickets sev-
eral times before and had 
never had any issues.

Both recommended taking 

more time to identify incon-
sistencies on the Facebook 
profiles of prospective sell-
ers or buyers. They also both 
suggested using MCommu-
nity to verify their student 
or alumni status.

“I 
started 
looking 
up 

(student ticket sellers) in 
MCommunity and I found at 
least two other people who 
didn’t go here,” Smoot said. 
“This one guy just kept say-
ing, ‘you’re safe with me, 
you’re safe with me.’ He did 
not go here.”

To try to make the veri-

fication process easier for 
students, LSA senior Mark 
Zubricki 
and 
Engineer-

ing senior Connor Turco 
launched SurfSeats at the 
beginning of the fall semes-
ter. With more than 500 
registered users, SurfSeats 
is an online ticket market-
place that is only accessible 
to those who sign up with a 
University-affiliated 
email 

address. 

Though 
Michigan 
Ath-

letics 
is 
partnered 
with 

Stubbhub to provide a secure 
platform 
for 
non-student 

ticket sales, Turco said there 
was a need for a student-ori-
ented marketplace.

“We noticed that there 

were a lot of people getting 
scammed in the group chats 
and we thought there was an 
opportunity to build a better 
ticket platform for students 
to sell their tickets,” Turco 
said.

SurfSeats facilitates pay-

ment 
through 
PayPal 
or 

Venmo, and all tickets are 
“insured.” If there are any 
issues with listers not trans-
ferring tickets, Truco said 
SurfSeats will replace the 
ticket or refund the buyer 
the full amount.

“(SurfSeats) 
has 
been 

pretty 
good 
so 
far, 
we 

haven’t had any scammers,” 
Truco said.

Whether students switch 

to new virtual marketplaces 
like SurfSeats or continue 
to buy and sell in Facebook 
groups, 
those 
who 
were 

scammed said they hope 
their “scam stories” will 
raise awareness about com-
mon scammer tactics. With 
mobile tickets here to stay, 
Beach said taking basic pre-
cautionary measures while 
shopping is a small price to 
pay to help ensure monetary 
security.

“I hope everyone stays 

safe if they’re trying to buy 
(tickets) off of a Facebook 
group,” Beach said.

Daily Staff Reporter Roni 

Kane can be reached at roni-
kane@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 6, 2021 — 3

District was among first in state to require weekly testing for 
unvaccinated staff as delta variant spread across Michigan

CAMPUS LIFE
Three things to watch out for 
when buying football tickets

RONI KANE

Daily Staff Reporter

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ANN ARBOR
Some parents ask AAPS 
to mandate vaccinations

Parents of Ann Arbor Pub-

lic Schools are calling on 
school leaders to mandate 
COVID-19 vaccination for its 
employees. AAPS was among 
the first districts in Michi-
gan to require unvaccinated 
employees to submit to week-
ly testing in July.

AAPS 
parent 
Danielle 

Stockton said she believes 
weekly testing for unvac-
cinated 
employees 
is 
not 

enough to mitigate the spread 
of 
COVID-19 
and 
thinks 

AAPS should begin requiring 
its employees to get vaccinat-
ed to continue working in the 
school system.

“If anything should remain 

open, besides businesses and 
everything else, it should be 
schools for children for in-
person learning, for those 
who need it,” Stockton said. 
“Especially special educa-
tion 
and 
special 
needsw 

where at-home learning is 
not feasible.”

The 
vaccinate-or-test 

model 
is 
consistent 
with 

the Biden administration’s 
recent 
vaccine 
mandate. 

However, some AAPS par-
ents like Stockton say this 
does not go far enough.

In a Sept. 13 email obtained 

by The Michigan Daily, AAPS 
Superintendent 
Jeanice 

Swift told an AAPS parent 
that the district is increas-
ing its support for vaccine 
uptake among its current and 
new staff, but no staff vac-
cine mandate has been put in 
place.

“Following the recent FDA 

approval of the Pfizer vac-
cine and the President’s sub-
sequent call for vaccines last 
Thursday evening, (AAPS is) 
continuing to increase our 

support to compel continu-
ing and new team members 
arriving in our system during 
back-to-school hiring season 
to ensure they are fully vac-
cinated,” Swift wrote. “At 
this time we have achieved 
extremely high rates of vac-
cination among our AAPS 
school staff.” 

Currently, the district has 

seen 56 total COVID-19 cases 
across the school system 
since the fall semester began 
on Aug. 27. However, cases 
have trended upwards in 
recent weeks, with 23 cases 
reported for the week of Sep. 
24, the highest case count for 
any week since the semester 
started. Officials at Dicken 
Elementary announced this 
past week that one class-
room would switch to remote 
learning following two posi-
tive cases.

Stockton pointed to the 

upward trend as a reason to 
pursue 
staff 
vaccinations 

more aggressively — espe-
cially in elementary schools 
where some students are 
ineligible to be vaccinated, as 
the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention currently 
recommends only children 12 
years and up to get the Pfizer 
COVID-19 vaccine. On Sept. 
28, Pfizer Inc. submitted ini-
tial trial data for vaccinating 
5-11 year olds and will submit 
a request for emergency use 
in the coming weeks, though 
approval could be stalled 
until Halloween to Thanks-
giving. 

“If cases are on the rise 

within schools, this is a per-
fect example of (asking), 
‘OK, what can we do to not 
let this happen to other ele-
mentary schools and some 
middle schools?’” Stockton 
said. “Obviously, (the ele-
mentary and middle schools) 
are probably more of the hot 
spots than the high schools, 

just because of the availabil-
ity of the vaccine for older 
kids.”

AAPS does not publish 

vaccination data from its 
employees, 
citing 
HIPAA 

protections. District officials 
did not immediately reply to 
a Michigan Daily request for 
comment.

In an email to Kate Swee-

ney, an Ann Arbor resi-
dent and Stockton’s mother, 
whose grandchild is enrolled 
in the AAPS district, Swift 
defended 
the 
district’s 

existing policy, saying it is 
among the most stringent in 
the state. Sweeney said she 
believed vaccines are the 
most effective way to protect 
the AAPS community and 
was frustrated by the dis-
trict’s decision to implement 
the vaccinate-or-test model. 

“It’s an elementary con-

cept, mandatory vaccines,” 
Sweeney said. “I just feel like 
(AAPS) should be taking the 
leadership role.”

Sweeney said it is impor-

tant for school employees to 
be vaccinated so kids who 
rely on their schools for sup-
port can continue attending 
in person.

“These 
kids 
have 
been 

through a lot with virtual 
school 
(with) 
the 
experi-

ence of learning over the past 
year,” Sweeney said. “I think 
the staff was doing the best 
that they could, but it still was 
not replacing the experience 
of face-to-face learning. And 
it’s pretty important when 
you see changes in kids now 
being back and how impor-
tant that is for their learning 
and social development.”

Daily Staff Reporters Domi-

nic Coletti and Vanessa Kiefer 
can be reached at dcoletti@
umich.edu 
and 
vkiefer@

umich.edu.

DOMINIC COLETTI & 

VANESSA KIEFER
Daily Staff Reporters

SOPHIA AFENDOULIS/Daily

Some parents are asking that the Ann Arbor Public Schools require vaccinations for all employees.

To avoid scam, avoid these three main warning signs 

when buying passes through groups on Facebook

