Beware of fake tickets for NFC title game

ATLANTA — Demand is high for tickets for Sunday's NFC Championship game featuring the Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers.

Channel 2's consumer investigator, Jim Strickland, has a ticket warning for fans after he spent hundreds of dollars on fake tickets.

Strickland searched Craigslist for tickets to the game and settled on an ad from a man claiming a family emergency was going to keep him from the game.

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The seats on the 50-yard line are going for nearly $1,000 each on NFL Ticket Exchange, but the ad offered two for $700.

Strickland met the man on Peachtree Street for the quick exchange. He told the man he was with Channel 2 Action News.

Scroll down for video of the interaction. 

Strickland took the tickets to the Georgia Dome where the Falcons vice president of ticket sales confirmed the tickets were fake.

"This guy or girl, I'd give a D. Yeah, they didn't do well," Don Rovak said.

There were plenty of issues with the tickets, including not enough numbers in the bar code, and the improper font size, but Rovak said the biggest issue is where the tickets came from.

"As many things as is wrong with these tickets, I want to stress it's where you bought the tickets," he said.

Rovak said he knows he will have to turn people away at the door on Sunday because they unknowingly bought counterfeit tickets.

"They spend two or three thousand dollars for their seats and they won't be able to come into the game," he said.

Rovak said the bigger the game, the bigger the problem of counterfeit tickets.

There are plenty of tickets available on legitimate sites like NFL Ticket Exchange.

Cox Media Group