Authorities warn fans of Celtics ticket scams

June 6, 2008 08:03 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Jillian Jorgensen, Globe Staff

Boston Police and the Boston Celtics have a warning for fans heading to the Garden: don’t buy your tickets on the street. They also have a warning to would-be scammers who want to sell fake tickets: try it, and you'll be arrested.

At Game 1 of the NBA Championship between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics Thursday night, 38 people at the TD Banknorth Garden presented tickets that turned out to be counterfeit, Boston Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

“Sadly, they end up getting turned away,” she said.

Driscoll said it can be difficult to identity the subtle differences in color and the style of lamination between fake and real tickets, so people should always buy tickets from authorized sellers.

“The fact is, the difference in the tickets in minimal,” she said. “The best defense against getting scammed is to not purchase a ticket at the street level.”

Four people were arrested Thursday for selling counterfeit tickets on the street, police said.

Only tickets purchased in person at the TD Banknorth Box Office or a Ticketmaster outline, over the phone from 800-4-NBA-TIX , or online from Ticketmaster.com or Celtics.com are guaranteed to be authentic, according to information provided by the Celtics.