USGA employee made millions stealing, selling US Open tix ...

[MtlJeff]

Not surprising...You guys who haven't listened to the McMillions scam from a while back would enjoy that one too

 

There's always someone on the inside screwing people

[stingerfade]

14 hours ago, tiderider said:

But acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams accused Fryer of exploiting both fans and his position at the USGA, a New Jersey-based organization.

“Criminals that conduct ticket schemes like this prey on the excitement surrounding big events,” she said in a statement Tuesday.

 

 

I’m sure she spent a lot of time in school to make that obvious observation. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by stingerfade

[JohnnyCashForever]

14 hours ago, Ironman_32 said:

basically an extra 4,000 tickets an event, or 1,000 extra a day. You think someone would have caught that, but I guess no one was looking at it close enough.

Basic tasks that require competence are for the little people.  Besides it's boring for the big thinkers.  All it does is help pay the bills.  

 

Everyone at the USGA knows the real work that'll get you promoted is to spend millions of dollars to monitor heat-mapped greens in real-time so that they'll know that they're killing them fast enough for Saturday at the US Open.  

[kasting333]

That’s millions more they could have paid someone to write a report on golf balls melting glaciers

[TiScape]

4 hours ago, caniac6 said:

I believe tickets for big concert tours were being bought by computers, and then sold on resellers websites for big mark ups. I think that is pretty scummy.

Yes and I totally agree. They use “bots”. Same thing people (scumbags) do with high-end/limited edition sneaker releases. The entire release is bought up and sold out by “bots” within minutes. Resold online at at a massive profit.

 

*Fryer is definitely worse though. As crappy as it is, at very least the scumbags buying up the concert tix and sneakers are paying retail for them before gouging ppl. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by TiScape

[bladehunter]

32 minutes ago, TiScape said:

Yes and I totally agree. They use “bots”. Same thing people (scumbags) do with high-end/limited edition sneaker releases. The entire release is bought up and sold out by “bots” within minutes. Resold online at at a massive profit.

 

*Fryer is definitely worse though. As crappy as it is, at very least the scumbags buying up the concert tix and sneakers are paying retail for them before gouging ppl. 

Yep. That’s another set of folks I detest.  Sneaker bots.  And masters ticket sellers.  
 

for every person who says/thinks that these creeps are facilitating them actually buying the limited item , there 10 of us who are not getting to buy at the time of release.    These idiots don’t help anyone. They hurt all by driving price up with fake demand , and they take all the fun out of owning something as soon as it comes out.  
 

what they do is buy them all up then sell all they can in the next week. Then trickle out that stock over the next few months as folks will pay the inflated price.  This is a fake bubble.  If the suppliers  all sold one pair ( tickets or shoes ) at a time to first come first serve customers there wouldn’t be the fake demand that seems to arrive in the first 40 seconds of availability.  While I agree it’s “ whatever price the market will pay “. The caveat is this. The “ un manipulated  market “.    This is akin to insider trading of stocks.  And we jail old ladies for that.  

Edited August 18, 2021 by bladehunter

[DON SVO]

2 hours ago, BNGL said:

So not to generate a larger debate here but maybe this is tiptoeing (or just a giant cannonball in that direction) but I’m firmly in camp one. I didn’t know tickets go to resellers first whether it’s a person or a computer but I’ve been the ALCS games, Finals games AFC Championship games, majors in golf (although those I got through work) but those other events I purchased tickets either thru ticket office or resellers mostly resellers. I knew going into it that buying tickets from the guy in front of Fenway I was going to get screwed. Of all the games I have bought tickets through scalpers resellers and paid that “premium” it looked full and there was not really another real option to attend. Now granted the Sox sellout darn near every game I believe and the Pats are (were) good so everyone wanted to go. But to me if it didn’t work then it wouldn’t exist because there wouldn’t be money in it. 

 

I agree, I don't want to create a huge segue here. There's angles regarding the presale of tickets and ticket resellers getting blocks of them (primary concern being when ABC Tickets gets 1/4 of the block of prime position seats off of first base, for example) where money might be changing hands on the back end, and those blocks are surreptitiously going to ABC Tickets before anyone has a chance.

 

I have a friend that owns a 'legitimate' local ticket reselling business. He primarily trades with/buys seats from clients and acquires some of his premium tickets through buying power up front from the box office (he's not doing anything backdoor for presale acquisition, it's the same process anyone can participate in) and he HATES the big resellers. I've heard some wild stories from him and there's a lot of people that are getting palms greased that we won't ever hear about. It's just gross to me. Oh well.

[aenemated]

8 hours ago, BNGL said:

Why is that? I’ve resold tickets that I knew I couldn’t use often at prices higher than face value, for which I had no trouble doing (Red Sox games for example) was it ever tickets that had been given to me? No. But why am I garbage? If there’s a market for it then why not?

 

 

Not really the situation I was talking about.

 

Seems it's been covered already but to reiterate - if you, just a normal person who bought or was gifted tickets and cannot or do not want to attend for whatever reason and you sell them - totally fine! 

 

My problem is exactly as others stated - when some scalper buys up (or in this case, steals/defrauds) tons of tickets with no intention other than to resale them and therefore artificially inflating the prices ... yes, those people/places are garbage. 

 

[caniac6]

I hope he upgraded his USGA membership.

[BNGL]

3 hours ago, aenemated said:

 

 

Not really the situation I was talking about.

 

Seems it's been covered already but to reiterate - if you, just a normal person who bought or was gifted tickets and cannot or do not want to attend for whatever reason and you sell them - totally fine! 

 

My problem is exactly as others stated - when some scalper buys up (or in this case, steals/defrauds) tons of tickets with no intention other than to resale them and therefore artificially inflating the prices ... yes, those people/places are garbage. 

 

Gotcha, yeah I was just curious. 

[tiderider]

3 hours ago, aenemated said:

 

 

Not really the situation I was talking about.

 

Seems it's been covered already but to reiterate - if you, just a normal person who bought or was gifted tickets and cannot or do not want to attend for whatever reason and you sell them - totally fine! 

 

My problem is exactly as others stated - when some scalper buys up (or in this case, steals/defrauds) tons of tickets with no intention other than to resale them and therefore artificially inflating the prices ... yes, those people/places are garbage. 

 

it's an interesting ethics study ... we live in a world of capitalism/freedom/etc ... when does "ethics" come into play? ... people buy tix and resell them (bsinstinct's examples are unrelated, even if he's a pats fan) ... as easy as it is to look at AGNC and smirk for even modern reasons (was recently reminded of Billy's 'tirade' against Tiger; that is not aging well), they are proactive in fighting ticket scalping, which many of us believe should be the ideal (no scalping, to degrees) ... i had to personally call a ticket agent to verify my physical address ... per google images ... but access controls so much of our society, and ticket access is one way for people of "less" access to acquire ... 

[bscinstnct]

2 hours ago, tiderider said:

it's an interesting ethics study ... we live in a world of capitalism/freedom/etc ... when does "ethics" come into play? ... people buy tix and resell them (bsinstinct's examples are unrelated, even if he's a pats fan) ... as easy as it is to look at AGNC and smirk for even modern reasons (was recently reminded of Billy's 'tirade' against Tiger; that is not aging well), they are proactive in fighting ticket scalping, which many of us believe should be the ideal (no scalping, to degrees) ... i had to personally call a ticket agent to verify my physical address ... per google images ... but access controls so much of our society, and ticket access is one way for people of "less" access to acquire ... 

 

 

(bsinstinct's examples are unrelated, even if he's a pats fan) 

 

Wait

 

Wut?!

 

🤣

[Mustard_Tiger]

I'm sure he needed the money to buy food and clothes and pay rent. No big deal. The USGA is swimming in cash.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Mustard_Tiger

[paulshack]

What an idiot 

 

Goodbye buddy

[aERonAUtical96]

22 hours ago, Ironman_32 said:

basically an extra 4,000 tickets an event, or 1,000 extra a day. You think someone would have caught that, but I guess no one was looking at it close enough.

The answer is nope.  Boxes and boxes of tickets typically were sitting around in Will Call with little to no security or auditing of how many boxes were gone through in one day or what tickets in each box were possibly sold/given out/taken/etc.  USGA had the ability to shut off access to certain tickets, if they were aware of some scheme going on (i.e. guy buys tickets, says he never receives them. USGA sends new batch all at the same time the guy received the tickets and resold them.  Both sets would be shut off and no access granted).

It doesn't surprise me someone did this.  It surprises me that they got caught.  Someone flipped on him on the reseller side.
 

Edited August 19, 2021 by aERonAUtical96

[TiScape]

54 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

 

(bsinstinct's examples are unrelated, even if he's a pats fan) 

 

Wait

 

Wut?!

 

🤣

Huh? You’re a Pat’s fan?? What examples??? What did I miss here 🤪

[bscinstnct]

14 minutes ago, TiScape said:

Huh? You’re a Pat’s fan?? What examples??? What did I miss here 🤪

 

Ya, I feel like Homer here

 

I don’t knowwww 🤣

 

 

[tiderider]

18 minutes ago, TiScape said:

Huh? You’re a Pat’s fan?? What examples??? What did I miss here 🤪

 he mentioned "red sox" ...i said "even" ... not implicating ... just assuming his proclivity is to the dark side of nature ... 

[bscinstnct]

5 minutes ago, tiderider said:

 he mentioned "red sox" ...i said "even" ... not implicating ... just assuming his proclivity is to the dark side of nature ... 

 

 

tide! That was BNGL lol

 

Im from NY. Just the words Red Sox makes me scowl 🤣

 

My Dad would take me to Yankee games in the 70s vs Boston, 

 

Be like,

 

 

[Soloman1]

Do y'all have any idea how many people at the non-profit PGA Tour make over $1 million per year?

 

This guy is small potatoes.

 

The non-profit Tour spent $65 million (!) on a 187,000 (!) square foot monster to house about 750 (!) employees (!).

[DON SVO]

10 hours ago, Soloman1 said:

Do y'all have any idea how many people at the non-profit PGA Tour make over $1 million per year?

 

This guy is small potatoes.

 

The non-profit Tour spent $65 million (!) on a 187,000 (!) square foot monster to house about 750 (!) employees (!).

 

The PGA Tour is a non-profit, and (crazy enough, I know) non-profits pay their employees and build offices. This is another rabbit hole we don't need to go down.

Edited August 19, 2021 by DON SVO

[Ironman_32]

12 hours ago, aERonAUtical96 said:

The answer is nope.  Boxes and boxes of tickets typically were sitting around in Will Call with little to no security or auditing of how many boxes were gone through in one day or what tickets in each box were possibly sold/given out/taken/etc.  USGA had the ability to shut off access to certain tickets, if they were aware of some scheme going on (i.e. guy buys tickets, says he never receives them. USGA sends new batch all at the same time the guy received the tickets and resold them.  Both sets would be shut off and no access granted).

It doesn't surprise me someone did this.  It surprises me that they got caught.  Someone flipped on him on the reseller side.
 

You're right, there are so many moving parts. I know I've been to PGA tour events where I've bought a ticket but no one was looking at them, you could basically just walk in. 

 

And I agree that someone definitely was sold out on this one. 

[Ole3wiggle]

12 hours ago, Soloman1 said:

Do y'all have any idea how many people at the non-profit PGA Tour make over $1 million per year?

 

This guy is small potatoes.

 

The non-profit Tour spent $65 million (!) on a 187,000 (!) square foot monster to house about 750 (!) employees (!).

You do know the USGA and the PGA TOUR are separate entities right? The PGA TOUR has nothing to do with the US Open and their ticket sales. 

 

On another note, yes, I think the saying is something like "there's a lot of money in non-profits"

[Soloman1]

No. I didn't realize that. Thanks. You'd think I would after being in the golf business for decades...

[tiderider]

12 hours ago, bscinstnct said:

 

 

tide! That was BNGL lol

 

Im from NY. Just the words Red Sox makes me scowl 🤣

 

My Dad would take me to Yankee games in the 70s vs Boston, 

 

Be like,

 

 

oohhhh ... i see ... there's a 'b' in both your names ... and there's really no difference between  yanks and boston fans, now is there? 

[bscinstnct]

39 minutes ago, tiderider said:

oohhhh ... i see ... there's a 'b' in both your names ... and there's really no difference between  yanks and boston fans, now is there? 

 

Ya,

 

Bama…Auburn…same thing right?

 

🤣
 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by bscinstnct

[Ole3wiggle]

1 hour ago, Soloman1 said:

No. I didn't realize that. Thanks. You'd think I would after being in the golf business for decades...

Ya, your average person would probably be oblivious but the PGA TOUR doesn't have anything to do with any of the Majors or the Ryder Cup. They do put on the President's Cup, however. 

[Murphy76]

15 hours ago, Soloman1 said:

Do y'all have any idea how many people at the non-profit PGA Tour make over $1 million per year?

 

This guy is small potatoes.

 

The non-profit Tour spent $65 million (!) on a 187,000 (!) square foot monster to house about 750 (!) employees (!).

 

You've got to spend all that money to be non-profitable.

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Murphy76

[jqsmooth]

USGA should really focus more on "security".   Remember the koo koo bird guy that stole Web Simpson's thunder?  I bet he bought one of those stolen tickets.

[golfortennis]

Can't recall the timing of this news, but it seems quite ironic hearing Nicklaus give a monologue during the US Amateur about who the USGA is, the type of people, etc.....