There's a thread going on on premium right now about the growing problem of scamming on this board. It hurts my heart to see Aggies being scammed out of money constantly on TexAgs when they are just trying to see the Aggies play in a game. Thankfully, incidents involving people that are actually associated with Texas A&M seem to be a very small percentage of incidents, but I don't think that gives too much comfort to people that have lost hundreds of dollars or more.
The problem that seems to be occurring, and the most important thing to remember, is that this board is accessible by anyone in the world with an internet connection. Therefore, if you announce that you are trying to buy tickets and are willing to send a complete stranger money, you should expect for people to attempt to scam you, especially when you post your email/phone number.
Another important thing to remember is that in most cases, there is no recourse. If you send your money via an unsecured means (Venmo, Zelle, Paypal friends and family option) you will never get it back and the person that scammed you will never get in trouble for it, and you will never get the tickets that you think you were paying for. Pretty much the worst that can happen to the scammer is that their account on TexAgs gets banned if that's the method they used to scam you. But unfortunately they can just turn around and create a new one to scam others. But a TexAgs account is not even necessary to scam people.
If you are buying tickets via a "Want to Buy/WTB" post, below are key points on how you can hopefully prevent yourself from being scammed:
1) Expect to be scammed. Be skeptical and diligent of everyone reaching out to you when they ask you to send money and that they will in turn give you tickets. Scams are rampant on this board and across the internet and when you indicate that you are willing to send hundreds of dollars are more to a complete stranger, you should expect to be scammed.
2) When someone reaches out to you off TexAgs (ie by phone/text/email) ask them to post on your thread from their account. If they refuse to, it's probably a scam - even if they say they forgot their password, or they just use their friends account or whatever. It's a simple request, and if they cannot fulfill the request then it's much more likely that they are a complete stranger to the community and looking for want to buy posts to scam them.
3) If they do agree to post in your thread (or if they send you a private message on TexAgs) - evaluate the account carefully before transacting. None of these suggestions are fail proof but when looking at an account you can look for posting history pretty quickly and easily. Do they seem to be a long term Aggie fan? The kind of person that might actually have some season tickets to sell you. Have they had an account for a while or did they create it in the past few days/weeks? If so it is very possible they created the account specifically to scam WTB posts. Do they have an Ag Tag? Ag Tags are hard to fake and can provide some measure of comfort that you are probably dealing with someone that has some measure of integrity - but there are still some scammer Aggies out there.
4) If they send you a screenshot of the tickets, don't put too much faith in it. These are extremely easy to fake so even if it's a legitimate transaction a screenshot of the tickets really means nothing in the sense of "proving" someone has the tickets for you. It also does not prove that they will send the tickets to you if they even exist.
5) Ask yourself - is the deal too good to be true? You can certainly score deals on this board, and sometimes it's legitimately Aggies trying to help others - but be skeptical if prices are significantly lower than what others are selling for on Ticket Exchange/Stubhub/Seat Geek. If it's too good to be true - it really might be unless you can verify that the person trying to sell you the tickets is simply a good Ag trying to help you out with cheap tickets because they cannot use them themselves.
6) Payment method matters. The king of payment methods is Paypal Goods and Services because it allows you to charge back if you end up getting scammed/without tickets. If someone does not want you to use Paypal Goods and Services it is possible, if not likely, that you are being scammed. Paypal Goods and Services charges an extra ~3% fee which if you are nice you can even offer to cover to help give peace of mind to the transaction. It is extremely important to remember that other payment methods (Paypal friends/family, Venmo, Zelle) carry significant risk with little chance of ever recovering your money. With venmo, at least, you can look at transaction history and someone's profile to try to determine if they are a legit seller or a scammer - but this is not foolproof by any means. In my experience, Zelle is rarely used for legitimate ticket transactions and if someone jumps to wanting you to use Zelle you may want to be extra cautious if not immediately deciding to walk away.
7) IMPORTANT ADDITION - If you post your phone number/email on someone else's Want To Sell post, you may possibly get a text message/call/email from a scammer who is claiming to be the original poster. Do not fall for this. There is absolutely no harm in asking the person to post again in their thread to ensure you are talking to the right person. And once again, if they insist you use an unsecured payment method, it is very possibly a scam.
If you are trying to buy tickets from a "Want to Sell/WTS" post - it is a little bit easier to do your diligence on the seller since they already have a TexAgs account with some amount of posting history. But #1, #4, #5, and #6 still apply big time. While it is less common, you can still get scammed on these types of posts. But often if someone is posting a WTS post, they have posted on the ticket exchange board before, potentially even for the exact same tickets at other games. If people haven't launched a complaint previously, that can hopefully provide some measure of comfort that they are a legitimate ticket holder and not a scammer. If it's their first post ever, be very skeptical.
If you are trying to sell tickets, you can still get scammed - but this is probably the least common. It is not unheard of for someone to steal/hack a venmo account and send you money. Then you send the tickets and venmo reverses the transaction because it is on a stolen account - and you are left with no tickets and no money. The 12th Man Foundation *may* be able to reverse the ticket transfer but I would not count on that being a possibility. So if you are selling tickets, you should still be extremely cautious.
If someone wants to meet in person to do the exchange, be very careful for obvious reasons.
A verified seller list/system would be nice, but as of now there really isn't one. There are various threads listing phone numbers/emails/usernames that have been associated with scamming but all 3 of these are easy to replace with a few clicks on the internet. So this list will NEVER be complete and should not be relied upon for your diligence.
There are several gigantic events coming up in College Station (and Omaha??) with the Texas football game in November possibly being the biggest of all time. Please be careful when doing transactions with strangers.
The problem that seems to be occurring, and the most important thing to remember, is that this board is accessible by anyone in the world with an internet connection. Therefore, if you announce that you are trying to buy tickets and are willing to send a complete stranger money, you should expect for people to attempt to scam you, especially when you post your email/phone number.
Another important thing to remember is that in most cases, there is no recourse. If you send your money via an unsecured means (Venmo, Zelle, Paypal friends and family option) you will never get it back and the person that scammed you will never get in trouble for it, and you will never get the tickets that you think you were paying for. Pretty much the worst that can happen to the scammer is that their account on TexAgs gets banned if that's the method they used to scam you. But unfortunately they can just turn around and create a new one to scam others. But a TexAgs account is not even necessary to scam people.
If you are buying tickets via a "Want to Buy/WTB" post, below are key points on how you can hopefully prevent yourself from being scammed:
1) Expect to be scammed. Be skeptical and diligent of everyone reaching out to you when they ask you to send money and that they will in turn give you tickets. Scams are rampant on this board and across the internet and when you indicate that you are willing to send hundreds of dollars are more to a complete stranger, you should expect to be scammed.
2) When someone reaches out to you off TexAgs (ie by phone/text/email) ask them to post on your thread from their account. If they refuse to, it's probably a scam - even if they say they forgot their password, or they just use their friends account or whatever. It's a simple request, and if they cannot fulfill the request then it's much more likely that they are a complete stranger to the community and looking for want to buy posts to scam them.
3) If they do agree to post in your thread (or if they send you a private message on TexAgs) - evaluate the account carefully before transacting. None of these suggestions are fail proof but when looking at an account you can look for posting history pretty quickly and easily. Do they seem to be a long term Aggie fan? The kind of person that might actually have some season tickets to sell you. Have they had an account for a while or did they create it in the past few days/weeks? If so it is very possible they created the account specifically to scam WTB posts. Do they have an Ag Tag? Ag Tags are hard to fake and can provide some measure of comfort that you are probably dealing with someone that has some measure of integrity - but there are still some scammer Aggies out there.
4) If they send you a screenshot of the tickets, don't put too much faith in it. These are extremely easy to fake so even if it's a legitimate transaction a screenshot of the tickets really means nothing in the sense of "proving" someone has the tickets for you. It also does not prove that they will send the tickets to you if they even exist.
5) Ask yourself - is the deal too good to be true? You can certainly score deals on this board, and sometimes it's legitimately Aggies trying to help others - but be skeptical if prices are significantly lower than what others are selling for on Ticket Exchange/Stubhub/Seat Geek. If it's too good to be true - it really might be unless you can verify that the person trying to sell you the tickets is simply a good Ag trying to help you out with cheap tickets because they cannot use them themselves.
6) Payment method matters. The king of payment methods is Paypal Goods and Services because it allows you to charge back if you end up getting scammed/without tickets. If someone does not want you to use Paypal Goods and Services it is possible, if not likely, that you are being scammed. Paypal Goods and Services charges an extra ~3% fee which if you are nice you can even offer to cover to help give peace of mind to the transaction. It is extremely important to remember that other payment methods (Paypal friends/family, Venmo, Zelle) carry significant risk with little chance of ever recovering your money. With venmo, at least, you can look at transaction history and someone's profile to try to determine if they are a legit seller or a scammer - but this is not foolproof by any means. In my experience, Zelle is rarely used for legitimate ticket transactions and if someone jumps to wanting you to use Zelle you may want to be extra cautious if not immediately deciding to walk away.
7) IMPORTANT ADDITION - If you post your phone number/email on someone else's Want To Sell post, you may possibly get a text message/call/email from a scammer who is claiming to be the original poster. Do not fall for this. There is absolutely no harm in asking the person to post again in their thread to ensure you are talking to the right person. And once again, if they insist you use an unsecured payment method, it is very possibly a scam.
If you are trying to buy tickets from a "Want to Sell/WTS" post - it is a little bit easier to do your diligence on the seller since they already have a TexAgs account with some amount of posting history. But #1, #4, #5, and #6 still apply big time. While it is less common, you can still get scammed on these types of posts. But often if someone is posting a WTS post, they have posted on the ticket exchange board before, potentially even for the exact same tickets at other games. If people haven't launched a complaint previously, that can hopefully provide some measure of comfort that they are a legitimate ticket holder and not a scammer. If it's their first post ever, be very skeptical.
If you are trying to sell tickets, you can still get scammed - but this is probably the least common. It is not unheard of for someone to steal/hack a venmo account and send you money. Then you send the tickets and venmo reverses the transaction because it is on a stolen account - and you are left with no tickets and no money. The 12th Man Foundation *may* be able to reverse the ticket transfer but I would not count on that being a possibility. So if you are selling tickets, you should still be extremely cautious.
If someone wants to meet in person to do the exchange, be very careful for obvious reasons.
A verified seller list/system would be nice, but as of now there really isn't one. There are various threads listing phone numbers/emails/usernames that have been associated with scamming but all 3 of these are easy to replace with a few clicks on the internet. So this list will NEVER be complete and should not be relied upon for your diligence.
There are several gigantic events coming up in College Station (and Omaha??) with the Texas football game in November possibly being the biggest of all time. Please be careful when doing transactions with strangers.
