Mercer students are getting scammed, and we have to watch out.
Professor of Mathematics Kyle Anderson was in the middle of a Calculus 2 class, on February 25, when he was interrupted by a person identifying himself as Jason who asked if he could speak to students for a moment.
Jason, acting as if he was a representative of the Student Government Association, started in on a spiel about a ‘once in a lifetime super sale’ hawking New York City comedy club tickets at 90% off. Anderson quickly got fed up and kicked him out.
This routine went on across campus throughout Tuesday, February 25. Multiple scammers knocked on classroom doors and wandered around populated hang out spots pitching the so-called tickets deal.
Shocked by the disruptive means of “advertising” by SGA, multiple professors quickly reported the problem to security and administrators.
With hopes to prevent further scamming, Diane Campbell, Vice President for Student Affairs, promptly sent out a campus-wide email alerting students to the illegal activities.
In her email she said, “Several MCCC professors reported that comedy club folks are back on campus selling tickets to students. Again. This is a scam. They go into classes and sell New York comedy club tickets at 90% discount. Several students bought tickets. Please do not get scammed. Do not buy these tickets.”
The following day she sent a follow-up email commending our security staff for reaching out to the club on behalf of those who were scammed. The club was horrified by the situation and said they will gladly honor all the fraudulent tickets.
Ironically, the same day the emails went out to students, the US government updated a previous article on an official website about common scams and frauds that can happen to the average American. Ticket scams were among the top ten.
In fact, in 2018, a survey 1,000 US adults conducted by ticketing technology vendor, Aventus, concluded roughly 12% of people buying event tickets will be scammed.
Students are used to the chronic spam phone calls and email phishing hacks. Now we have one more scam to watch out for.
