How to Verify Authenticity of Football Tickets?

Using technological advancements to digitize football tickets has its own downside, one of which is susceptibility to fraud due to several illegal third-party platforms that sell fake tickets. How can this be curbed? Firstly, individuals must take responsibility and learn to verify the authenticity of football tickets before purchasing them.

Online ticket fraud is now a major issue in the football community. There’s also a report that claims that football organizers and stadium staff seize an average of 80 to 100 counterfeit tickets per game, which usually leaves several innocent fans unable to enter the stadium after unknowingly purchasing fake tickets.

This creates an unusual experience for fans, especially after being made to believe they’re purchasing legitimate tickets. The need to verify the authenticity of football tickets has never been more important, considering how these ticket scammers are equipped with knowledge of the ticketing system, which means they can create fake tickets that appear to be genuine.

You must stay one step ahead of these ticket scammers. They often bank on the vulnerabilities and desperation of football fans who would do anything to get tickets to watch their favorite teams play. Here are some of the best ways to verify the authenticity of football tickets to avoid being a victim of online ticket fraud.

Necessary Precautions

As mentioned earlier, you must try to stay one step ahead, which means carefully considering how, when, and where you get your football tickets.

Choose a Reputable Platform

You can’t be too careful with ticket purchases. Several reputable online ticket platforms have hundreds of positive reviews from users who have dealt with them in the past. You should do proper research on the platform before you buy your tickets. Use review websites like Kiyoh and Trustpilot to find what people are saying about these platforms and their tickets.

Look for good and bad reviews; they will help you make a more informed decision. Ultimately, the pros must outweigh the cons before you settle for a platform.

Visitfootball is one of the best online ticket platforms on the internet. The platform has a diverse range of tickets to different football matches in different countries. You can secure tickets to watch the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, FA Cup, UEFA Europa League, Spanish La Liga, and many more.

The ticketing platform has a simple and easy-to-use interface, which is why some past users rate it 9.2 out of 10, with 100% recommendation.

Be Careful When the Price is Too Good to Be True

Football tickets are some of the hardest things to come by these days, especially in the most popular leagues with the biggest teams. With increasing demands, tickets are sold out faster than ever before, and third-party platforms sell for a little more than the original price.

So, when you find a platform that wants to sell you a ticket for less than half the original price, you should be careful. You may be getting a fake ticket without knowing. After all, you just want to get in the stadium at all costs.

We understand how important it is for you to get the best deal for a football ticket. However, know when to walk away when the price is too good to be true, especially when you get a bad feeling about the platform's legitimacy.

Features of an Authentic Ticket

You can tell the authenticity of a football ticket through its physical features, so you must be extra vigilant to pay attention to these details. When one or two of these features are missing or look suspicious, you should know this may spell trouble as the tickets may be counterfeit.

Here are some of the physical features that can help you determine whether a football ticket is authentic or not:

• Watermark: Most authentic tickets have a watermark with official markings, including the team logo and other verifiable information. Whether digital or physical, you must always look out for this watermark, as it’s one of the best ways to tell whether a ticket is real or fake. Thankfully, it comes with most tickets, so this should be very easy to spot.

• Barcode: Another way to authenticate a football ticket is to look for a barcode. A barcode is one of the main features of an authentic ticket because it usually contains information about the event. This includes the name of the stadium, seat number, and more. One good way to ensure the ticket's authenticity is to scan the barcode with a smartphone using barcode scanners.
• Holograms: Authentic tickets will also have holograms, making it very difficult for ticket scammers to replicate them. The rise of ticket fraud has caused several clubs to start implementing several security measures to prevent the misuse of their tickets. One of these is the introduction of the hologram, which contains official markings. To tell the difference between a fake and an authentic ticket, hold them beside each other, and you will immediately spot the errors.
• Paper Quality: If you’ve been using physical tickets for a long time, you can easily tell how an authentic ticket feels and looks. Football clubs usually print on high-quality paper that may be hard to come by anywhere else. Once you notice the ticket feels lighter than usual, it’s most likely a fake. According to Ticket Gum, ticket scammers always want to make the most from limited resources, so they always print out more units than usual to save costs and maximize profit. This makes the quality of the tickets very inferior compared to the original tickets.

Features of a Fake Ticket

Just as there are ways to confirm the authenticity of a football ticket, fake tickets also have certain features that can help you tell that they’re counterfeit.

• Enticing Pricing: You should know something is fishy when you encounter a ticket priced significantly lower than the rest of the market. These ticket scammers aim to make you feel like you’re getting the best deal possible, so you must be very cautious not to fall victim in the name of getting a great deal.
• Incorrect Information and Spelling Errors: The ticket production process for a real ticket is very meticulous, something ticket fraudsters can’t afford. During the rush of producing more tickets with limited resources, they often make mistakes such as spelling errors and adding incorrect information to the counterfeit tickets. If you pay proper attention, you will figure these flaws out and know that the tickets are not real.
• Missing Features: You will not find the important features included in real tickets in the fake ones. Features such as barcodes, watermarks, and holograms will either be missing or look significantly unreal.

Original/Fake Ticket Comparison Table

Verification Methods

Verification of football tickets can be divided into two categories: visual and digital. These methods can quickly help you determine the authenticity of a football ticket.

Visual

It is possible to hold a football ticket in your hand, take a good look, and tell whether it’s real or not. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways to determine its authenticity.

Firstly, you want to check for all the features of a real ticket, such as barcodes, holograms, watermarks, and paper quality. If you don’t find any flaws in any of these features, it means you’re holding a genuine ticket. Most of the time, you can tell. Just try to study how an authentic ticket looks and compare its features to a counterfeit.

Always look out for grammatical and spelling errors as well as incorrect information. These are the features of a counterfeit ticket.

Digital

Going digital can help you reduce the chances of making a mistake when confirming a ticket’s authenticity. Most ticketing platforms have mobile apps, which you can use to confirm your ticket’s authenticity via QR and barcodes. You can also confirm this by inputting the ticket number to get all the information about the ticket in question.

Conclusion

Ticket scams are a big problem in the football community. The earlier people learn how to combat these scams, the better for all parties involved. As a fan, it is essential to fortify yourself with the knowledge of how to verify a ticket’s authenticity, which we’ve discussed in this article.

You want to make sure the ticket, whether digital or physical, has all the features of an original ticket. This could be an official watermark, quality printing and paper, and a hologram. Thanks to the digital age, you can now confirm how authentic a ticket is by scanning the featured QR code using your marketplace’s official mobile app.

To avoid all this, it’s best to choose a reliable ticket platform like Visitfootball for all your ticket needs. With this platform, you have everything you need in an ideal ticket marketplace, including security, user-friendliness, specially crafted football trip packages, and more.