Fake tickets show at Arkansas football games

LITTLE ROCK - About 50 football fans who paid a premium to scalpers to see the LSU-Arkansas game last Friday in Little Rock got into War Memorial Stadium, but they didn&#39;t have a seat. The tickets were counterfeit.<br> <br> University of Arkansas ticket manager Mark Scobey says counterfeit tickets also emerged on Nov. 11 for the Tennessee-Arkansas game at Fayetteville. Scobey said counterfeit tickets had not been a problem at Arkansas until those two games.<br> <br> War Memorial Stadium ushers manager Beverly Rook said that she has worked 35 years and never before had to deal with counterfeit tickets.<br> <br> ``For somebody to stoop so low as to copy them we&#39;ve dealt with stolen tickets before, but with bogus tickets I never thought I&#39;d see the day,&#39;&#39; Rook said.<br> <br> Fans headed to Atlanta for Saturday&#39;s Southeastern Conference Championship Game between Florida and Arkansas should be on the lookout for phony tickets there, too, said SEC tickets director David Knight.<br> <br> But Knight said there is a remedy for fans buying tickets on the street. The Georgia Dome will have a ticket window where the buyer and seller can go to verify the tickets are authentic before money changes hands.<br> <br> Knight noted that tickets for the championship have barcodes, so only holders of authentic tickets can get into the stadium. Among SEC schools, only LSU uses barcodes on its tickets, he said.<br> <br> In 2004, more than 200 counterfeit tickets were found before the Tennessee-Auburn SEC Championship.<br> <br> Rook said that ticket takers at War Memorial Stadium aren&#39;t expected to inspect each ticket.<br> <br> ``When everybody is coming in there, 10 minutes before the game, you don&#39;t have time to chase anybody down,&#39;&#39; Rook said. ``Your job is to seat the people and handle the problems afterward.&#39;&#39;<br> <br> Little Rock police said they have not received a formal complaint about the counterfeit tickets.<br> <br> Barry Davidson of Dallas, who said he paid $342 for four fake tickets from scalpers, got into the game. He said fans in his section with legitimate tickets agreed to squeeze together and make room for the people who bought the fakes.<br> <br> Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com

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