‘I flew 5,500 miles and paid £900 for a Premier League ticket but was turned away’

Premier League games are a regular fixture for some football fans. They also purchase season tickets for away games and travel throughout the nation with their team.

For some, attending a top-tier game in England is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they can reclaim and take extended breaks from their daily lives for.

James from South Korea paid £900 for a ticket purchased from an unlicensed resale website last weekend to travel 5, 500 miles to Brighton to watch his beloved Tottenham play for the first time. He was denied entry to the stadium when he attempted to.

When James attempted to scan the ticket, it had already deactivated. He was given the instructions to go to the ticket office, where Brighton staff informed him that his ticket had been fraudulently purchased.

He appeared to be upset outside the stadium, saying, “I’m disappointed, I didn’t understand this rule.”

“I was told to try to get the ticket refunded,” I was told.

More than a hundred more people like James also had their tickets canceled in the same way.

Reselling is prohibited in the UK, but many websites still have locations abroad.

According to the BBC investigation, resellers frequently rack up hundreds of tickets using fake identities and fake identities to sell them for higher prices, leaving customers with extortionate prices or completely out of pocket after purchasing ineffective tickets.

According to Tom Greatrex, president of the Football Supporters’ Association, “long-term supporters are finding it impossible to get tickets because they are made available through secondary agencies.”

Brighton claim they are attempting to stop ticket sales at exorbitant prices through unlicensed websites. They are using new technologies.

Joseph Sells was on duty for the Tottenham fixture this season to try and solve the issue. This year, they hired him into a new staff position as tickets investigation officer.

According to Sells, “We’ve discovered hundreds of unauthorised resale tickets] today, and by moving at the black market rate, we’ve prevented about £100,000 of transactions that would have been touts,” according to Sells.

“We’re making significant investments to stop the issue from the beginning using the most recent technology,” he said.

A family brought six tickets, totaling £6, 000, to watch the Manchester City game a fortnight ago.

“That’s very upsetting, of course. If you want to attend a game, you can purchase directly from the club. It’s a sad story, but we’re repeating it.

Later, Brighton later reported to the BBC that 285 touted tickets had been revoked and that 12 individual season ticket holders had their tickets for upcoming matches also been identified as touts.

The Premier League is already enacting new regulations for digital ticketing, including those that, according to them, will make it harder to sell tickets.

Sells claims that while he shares resources with other clubs, Brighton’s software searches for suspicious transactions and searches resale sites for tickets with seat numbers.

He claims that we are essentially teaching a model how to spot bad behavior before it enters the club. Each transaction is given a risk score.

Let’s say someone in Estonia uses a United Arab Emirates prepaid card to make purchases. This will flag the system.

The model “teachs how to spot more anomalies daily” claims the model.

Fans at Brighton are given a letter outlining the incident and ending with the phrase “To obtain a refund you should contract your card issuers who will assist you as a victim of fraud in reclaiming monies you have paid to the seller.”

Fans whose tickets are blocked on entry can also purchase any remaining seats in the stadium, either from season ticket holders who are unable to attend or from those in the hospitality section.