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
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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