How to get Seahawks tickets

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, January 19, 2006

Seattle Seahawks fans looking to score last-minute tickets to Sunday’s National Football Conference championship game against the Carolina Panthers at Qwest Field might want to set their clocks a little fast.

Improvements in technology have made it easier for fans to buy tickets – and easier for scammers to cash in.

Kevin Nortz / The Herald photo illustration Seahawks playoff tickets for Sunday’s game are a hot item. If you are trying to score some tickets for the big game, police warn buyers to take care that they don’t beome victims of a scam.

That’s why Seattle police recommend that fans buy their tickets before Sunday, regardless of a recent loosening of laws regulating ticket sales.

Seattle recently dumped a longtime law that didn’t allow people to sell tickets for more than face value, but that doesn’t completely clear the way for scalpers, Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said.

The city’s mobile vendor ordinance, or peddlers ordinance, prohibits the sale of any goods, including tickets, without a license in the area from S. Holgate Street on the south to Seattle Center on the north, and Sixth Avenue on the east to Elliott Bay on the west.

Still, Whitcomb said uniformed and plainclothes officers will not target fans who are trying to sell an extra ticket or two. They’ll only seek out people who are making a side business of it.

“With all the excitement around the NFC championship, there’s definitely going to be somebody out there trying to make some extra money by swindling people,” Whitcomb said.

He said counterfeit tickets have gotten very sophisticated, and some even include bar codes.

“Imagine the shock when someone buys a ticket for an exorbitant price, shows up at the ticket stall, and the ticket comes up as a duplicate,” Whitcomb said. “Of course, the person who sold the ticket will be long gone.

“What we’d really want people to do is not buy those tickets.”

Easy enough.

That brings up the question: How do you find a legitimate ducat?

A long string of Web sites, including eBay, StubHub and Razorgator, offer fans places to buy and sell tickets with some security, while brokers such as Pacific Northwest Ticket Service and Tickets Now provide a similar service.

Craigslist, a classified ad posting site with some regulation, warns buyers about the risks of counterfeit tickets and has a handful of posts from users warning against such scams.

For instance, one ad offers playoff tickets but requests that the payment be wired to the United Kingdom for overnight delivery of the tickets. But a couple of would-be customers have admonished others to question the U.K. link.

This week, reports circulated about an Ohio man who was arrested for allegedly selling nonexistent tickets to college football games on eBay. Fans didn’t get to see the games, but they did get their money back.

Once you’re comfortable that you’ve found some legitimate tickets, prepare to spend some real money.

A search late Thursday afternoon revealed more than 350 eBay auctions asking as much as $1,000 per ticket. Razorgator had tickets for as much as $2,300 each.

Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.