TICKET BROKER SCANDAL INTENSIFIES—AARON DILLE, ONE MAN TAKING A STAND AGAINST ORGANIZED TICKET SWINDLES

 PHOENIX, AZ--Fresh out of college, Aaron Dille founded a family firm, Game Time Travel, to provide travel packages to “big” college and professional sporting events so that a whole family could enjoy a game and long weekend together. Often Game Time Travel’s packages were cheaper than what the big ticket brokers were charging just for tickets. These big ticket brokers repeatedly requested that Game Time Travel increase their prices to their customers; when Dille refused, the brokers starting playing dirty. Game Time Travel was first scammed for more than $75,000 in 2002 by a broker in Pittsburgh.  Aaron Dille personally caught and delivered those criminals and their organized crime associates to the police in that case, capturing the media's attention when the story broke.  (Contact Pittsburgh Police Detective Patrick Miller, 412.473.1259, who personally worked the case.)  Game Time Travel was doing phenomenally well until the Sugar Bowl, 2004.  It was at that time that the “big boys” in the ticket industry decided to teach this successful young upstart a lesson.  Game Time Travel paid in advance for tickets for his customers, then “the big boys in the ticket scalping industry” refused to deliver them, literally leaving Dille and his staff in fear for their lives. And that is when things got ugly. Game Time Travel’s lawsuit against the other ticket brokers has now reached Federal Court in Arizona.  For additional media information, to set an interview, etc., please contact Carole V. Bartholomeaux, 602 404 8018 or Carole@b-pr.com

“Ticket scalping is not a ‘victimless crime’ but one that leads to violence and costs literally millions of dollars in lost tax revenues annually,” Dille explained. “In 2003, Game Time Travel was a small business with only four employees, but growing quickly and beating all goals and expectations.  At 11 p.m. on the Saturday night before the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Totally Tickets demanded an additional $250,000 cash payment from me in front of witnesses for tickets which Game Time Travel had already paid for but not received. Totally Tickets owner, Mike Fletcher, laughed when I explained that I could not raise that kind of cash at 11 p.m. on a weekend.” 

Oklahoma fans who found letters from Game Time Travel with a refund of their initial ticket price destroyed Game Time Travel’s booth in the hotel lobby.  The Security Guard moved vans to the back of the Hotel and warned Mr. Dille and his staff to leave the building.  For additional information:  Hottest ticket in town leaves some out in cold Fans frustrated by sports tour operator  01/04/04 The Times-Picayune. Contact: John Pope at jpope@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3317 or Keith O'Brien, kobrien@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3452 or Susan Finch, sfinch@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3340.  Phony tickets can fake out Suns fans The Arizona Republic May. 28, 2006 http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/0528suns-counterfeit0528-CP.html Contact:  Kerry Fehr-Snyder, 602.444.8975, or PLAYBOY Magazine, December, 2005.

The Attorney General of New York has an on-going investigation against these ticket brokers, http://home.oag.state.ny.us/press/reports/scalping/full_text.html.  Dille wants to expose all parties to this crime (brokers, teams that support them in violation of their own league and national rules, politicians that accept lobbying money and bribes from the broker industry, and so on.).   Major national media attention will bring out even more victims of this corrupt industry and will force elected officials to take action. 

“My goal is not to eliminate all brokers, just to regulate the ticket brokerage industry and make it operate legally, like any other business. That way we can all safely experience the games all Americans enjoy,” Dille continued.  “Totally Tickets attorneys have requested mediation as the Federal Court trial draws closer. Private investigators have uncovered evidence that all major ticket brokers make upwards of $17 million annually of untaxed income.  My family and I have been the subject of home invasions, threatening messages on a daily basis, stalking of female family members and more.  These ticket brokers attain their tickets illegally through fraud and bribery.  And finally, they break national laws against scalping when they sell the tickets.  In short, they get the tickets illegally, sell them illegally, and then illegally fail to pay taxes on their profits.”

For additional media information, to set an interview, please contact:  Carole V. Bartholomeaux, Bartholomeaux/Public Relations, LLC, Agency of Record, Aaron Dille, 602 404 8018 or Carole@b-pr.com    

Research information:  NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TICKET BROKERS, CODE OF ETHICS:  http://www.natb.org/consumer/index.cfm?pg=code.cfm

 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2002-10-07-e-scalping_x.htm

When it comes to ticket scalping, the Net's the Wild West  By Allan Drury, Gannett 

MASSACHUSETTS LAW ABOUT TICKET SCALPING http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/scalphing.html

VIKINGS TICE TARGET OF SUPER BOWL SCALPING PROBE 03.08.05http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/nfl/03/08/banks.tice/index.html?cnn=yes