After a tweet on Monday afternoon proclaimed a presidential visit to Bryant-Denny Stadium this Saturday, some were quick to voice their opinions. Others, however, saw President Donald Trump’s potential appearance, which was confirmed by Trump yesterday, as a vital cash grab. 

On Tuesday, the Tuscaloosa News reported that ticket resale prices for the Alabama-LSU game had soared to $500 and were set to increase. 

Dave Love, an administrator for the Alabama Student Ticket Exchange, said figures that high were likely scams – something he’s seen a lot of this year. 

“The ticket scalping has been a nightmare for me,” he said. “There have been days where I’m literally just on my phone all day long with people messaging me.”

This upcoming game has posed even more challenges for Love, who has been working to streamline user experiences over the past year. He’s recently learned to use Facebook’s keyword feature, which he has been using to flag posts with explicit and political language – a popular pairing being the words “f***” and “Trump.”

The ticket exchange currently has 76,000 members, and Love said he adds about 500 every week. Normally, Love expects about 1000 posts per business day, with about 250 during the weekend. After the 3 p.m. tweet by BamaCentral’s Christopher Walsh, users flooded the feed seeking to buy and sell.

Love estimated that, aside from scammy outliers, the average price for a ticket sold on his page is about $200 to $250, and, like with most other games, it should go down toward the end of the week. 

To prevent being scammed, Love has a few tips for first-time buyers:

1. Buy from students. Go to the UA directory, look up their name, make sure they’re a student. Kicked a fraternity kid out of the group because he didn’t refund someone’s money. That’s something that students can take to the dean. 
2. If you’re buying from anyone except your friends, use PayPal.
3. If you’re buying from outside sources, don’t do it through Facebook messenger and text messages. Use your head, basically – and use PayPal. 

“Use the resources that are out there and you won’t get ripped off,” Love said.