It was also bad for anybody who purchased a counterfeit ticket at the game, and believe me, there were tons of counterfeits being peddled in the parking lot of Lambeau Field.
From the second we parked our car we experienced it firsthand. A young couple who drove to the game from Minnesota signaled me over to their car to ask me to see my ticket. When I showed it to them all they did was stare at it with a discouraged look on their faces.
I asked them what was wrong and they asked me if they thought their tickets were fake. I looked at them and quickly could tell that they have been forged. The couple kept pointing out that their ticket had the mandatory watermark on the back of it, but it didn't shine like it was supposed to. I explained that to them.
About 15 minutes after that my buddy and I walked up to the parking lot and saw that there was a man trying to sell another man a ticket. I could tell from a distance that it was another fake, so I told the prospective buyer to stay away. The seller became angry and asked me why. I told him it was a fake and that they should show it to a cop.
Instead, they took it up to a ticket taker, who told them it was indeed a counterfeit and the seller took off running. I quickly found a cop and he told us to run after him and call 911 because he couldn’t leave his post.
We chased the guy for a while and left it up to the cops to take care of the rest.
According to an Associate Press story, Green Bay police arrested seven men Sunday afternoon on either forgery allegations or for not having solicitor permits.
Police seized more than 40 fake tickets altogether.
The collectible part of this story takes us to eBay. Right now there are several eBay auctions online with people selling full tickets to that game for collectors items.
I have a very strong feeling that the majority of those “fulls” being sold right now on eBay are fake. You can’t tell from the scan, but there were very few no-shows and I can’t imagine very many “real” fulls exist.
Just wait for the Super Bowl. Something needs to be done, because these fakes at the NFC Championship Game were actually pretty good and Super Bowl ticket are going for a few more thousand dollars than the Packers/Giants game.