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So, you forget that one of the problems here is (and we did this in college), walk in with your tickets, walk out and get stamped, and let someone use your ticket to come back in. So in theory, you could have been doing that. There's no way anyone at the stadium or the ticket office knew that YOU weren't the one trying to scam them. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Once the barcode is scanned, the ticket won't let anyone else in. That's exactly what happened to me.

Scalping and fraud with tickets is a big problem. With the paper/electronic trails in place, the University could address the scalping problem if they wanted to put forth the effort.

I didn't expect so many responses in a short time. Nobody has yet to explain why there are even e-tickets allowed. Without those, there wouldn't be any problems. I have an issue with the policies in place regarding e-tickets. All I really expected out of the ticket office was a little sympathy (let's call it good customer service, shall we). They could've at least rechecked the e-ticket holder who was already in the seats; I'm only guessing he was also innocent; maybe he wasn't. But let me ask you guys this; where is a person suppose to buy a ticket that is assured of not being a scam or scalped? They're all sold out at the University. To be honest, I thought I was buying from a site that had a mass order of tickets directly from the University. I didn't know they were reselling for other ticket holder. I guess that's what all of those websites do? Is stubhub a 3rd party reseller too or to they get tickets by bulk directly from the University? Where do you guys get tickets? the mention at "Inherited" wasn't meant to mean "legally inherited". There are descendants of season ticket holders that keep the tickets, even when the original holder is no longer going to or even capable of going to games.

This is lengthy, but necessary. I hope you take the time to read it. For the record; I'm old enough to remember Jerry Tagge leaning over the goal line for a TD. I'm also a UNL alumni from the College of Engineering. I give permission for this article to be posted, copied, and circulated by any means. I relinquish all rights. I'd like to see it sent to the major Husker sportswriters (Tom, Tad, Brian, the other Brian, Sam, Dirk, Steven, etc....) if anyone has a solid contact with them. Once a year I try to find reasonably priced tickets to one game (usually one not on a major TV network) to take my oldest adopted Chinese daughter to a Husker game. She is 11 years old this year. I had a very bad experience. A few months ago a website was listed in the Omaha World Herald as a good place to purchase tickets. It is redzonetickets.com . I purchased two tickets from them. They were delivered via FedEx requiring a signature. I actually had to go to a FedEx store to sign for them and pick them up with a picture I.D. They were not e-tickets. They were not forged tickets. They were not copied tickets. They were genuine. When my daughter and I got to gate 16 to try and check in, the tickets would not scan. Apparently, someone else with e-tickets for the same seats I had, got to the game before me and got scanned in first. I had the actual, genuine, physical tickets. The worker at the gate felt terrible. He was absolutely great and tried to help us. You could tell he was tempted to let us in against policies. What he did do was take us to the ticket office (somewhere on the North East side of the stadium). After waiting in line for about 15 minutes, they looked at the tickets, questioned where I got them, and basically said that I shouldn't buy scalped tickets and that there was nothing they could do. They never heard of redzonetickets.com. I told them it was recommended by the Omaha World Herald. They didn't care. They didn't care. I repeat, THEY DID NOT CARE! It didn't matter that my 11-year old daughter was standing there almost in tears. THEY DID NOT CARE! Even though I had the legitimate tickets in my hand, THEY DID NOT CARE! My adopted, Chinese daughter wasn't good enough. She knows more about football than 50% of the people in that stadium. She can name every starting NFL quarterback and many of their backups. Maybe I should've shaved her head and called her Jack, then she would've gotten in free. They offered to sell me new tickets. I couldn't, nor did I wish to buy new tickets. How can they have a sell out if they have tickets to sell at game time? So, the ticket office basically kicked me and my daughter out of the stadium. I was pretty upset. I lost my temper, took my brand new Red Husker Hat that I was wearing for the first time (I have a black one with sweat beads all around it that I wear everyday) and threw it on the ground and stepped on it and said "I was no longer a Husker fan. The University of Nebraska could go f!*#@Wk themselves!". I started to take off my red husker shirt, then thought better of it. The ticket office employees were watching my outside; you could tell they were tempted to call security. THEY DID NOT CARE!!!! I embarrassed myself, my daughter, and lost my hat. I did compose myself, turn around to go get my hat, but it was already gone. In seconds, someone picked it up and took it. Well, it didn't matter. I was swearing to myself that I would never wear Husker merchandise again. I managed to get a hold of redzonetickets.com on my cell, while the Huskers were scoring their first touchdown. In all fairness to them, they apologized left and right. They had a rep at the game who met me at gate 14 with new e-tickets which the rep took up to the gate employee himself, to make sure they would scan and get my daughter and me into the game. I gave him my old tickets; he said they would investigate what happened. I asked them to keep me informed. They also refunded me for the original tickets and did not charge me anything for the new tickets. They did their best to take care of me, so kudos to them. My daughter and I finally sat down with about 1:30 left in the first quarter. Apparently what happened, is the original ticket holder put the tickets up for sale on multiple websites. I got the originals through redzonetickets.com, but someone else, and who knows, maybe others, got e-tickets from different websites. With the paper trail that is left behind with these tickets, there is no reason for this to happen. BUT NOBODY CARES!!!!! The bottom line is the University only cares about maintaining the sellout streak at any cost. So, I do have issues with how the whole ticket management at NU operates. 1. First, big corporations use profit dollars to donate to the University. That's great. In return, they get numerous tickets. I'm okay with that. But who gets those tickets? The officers and management of the company. Do you think the poor mail clerk ever gets to see one? If he does it's to a non-TV type game. The CEO's going to the big game, even though he didn't pay for his ticket. I have an issue with that. 2. There are season ticket holders who haven't been to a game in decades. All they do is resell their tickets for a profit. I have issues with that. There are those of us who might want to legitimately buy a ticket for a game without having to pay scalping fees or risk what happened to me. 3. There are people who say they have 'inherited' their season tickets. I have an issue with that too. Just because their grand-pappys had money in the 1960s while my ancestors were slopping someone else pigs just to get a meal doesn't make it right that they should automatically inherit season tickets. It's no better than an African-American suing a caucasian because that caucasian's great-great-great-great-grandfather was a slave owner. Personally, I think all tickets should be bought straight from the University. If a ticket-holder can't make a game, he can sell his ticket back to the University for them to resell to people who really are fans and want to attend a game. This idea of multiple websites where tickets can be found is what is causing problems. These websites do not share a common database so that the purchase of tickets can be verified. That would also solve the problem of lame fans that think Tommie Frazier is still playing and don't know the difference between a quarterback and a cornerback. I also don't believe in electronic copies of tickets. Why do we have them? I had the actual tickets; not e-tickets; not forged tickets; not copied tickets;, and they were no good. What happened to me would not ever happen if we got rid of e-tickets. I think it would be great if photo I.D.s were required at the gate for season ticket holders. But that isn't feasible, and it should be okay for a ticket holder to give his ticket to immediate family; but NOT TO RESELL FOR A PROFIT!!!! To Summarize, it doesn't matter if you buy tickets from a legitimate source. It doesn't matter if you have the physical tickets in hand. What matters is who gets scanned into the gate first. The gatekeeper guy was very nice. He felt terrible. Redzonetickets.com also did all they could. But what really irks me, is that the ticket office had no backup contingency plan for this scenario. You'd think they'd keep back a few tickets for when this happens. They obviously have them if they offered to sell new ones to me. BUT THEY DON"T CARE!!!!! I repeat: THEY DON'T CARE!!!! The UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA ATHELETIC DEPARTMENT TICKET OFFICE CAN KISS MY effing bottom!!!!! And I'm still not sure I will be a Husker fan anymore.