Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
A company mails season ticket holders an offer of "top dollar'' if they sell their game tickets.
By DAVID KARP
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 15, 2001
TAMPA -- The letter arrived in the mail addressed, "Dear Buccaneers Season Ticket Holder."
With a promise to handle business discreetly, a company called Event Services International offered to buy extra game tickets for "top dollar."
When season ticket holder Joe Bondi read the letter, he wondered how the company got his name.
"Obviously, they have the season ticket holder list," Bondi said. "How did they get ahold of it?"
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are asking the same question.
Team spokesman Reggie Roberts said Tuesday that the team's security staff would begin examining how the company might have obtained a list. "We are kind of scratching our head and wondering how this company got our season ticket holder list," Roberts said.
The Bucs did not sell this company -- or any other -- the list, he said.
"I can assure you that list did not come from us," Roberts said. "Confidentiality is everything to us. That list is sacred to us. These are the people who come to our games and come to our stadium. We are not going to sell our fans out."
If an employee of the Bucs leaked the list, he added, that person would be fired. The team has taken efforts to keep the list private before. The Bucs successfully fought in 1999 to keep information about season ticket holders secret during a public records lawsuit with the County Commission.
When the St. Petersburg Times called the toll-free number listed on the letter, a man named "Nick" answered but wouldn't say how the company got the addresses. He wouldn't give his full name, wouldn't put a company spokeswoman on the phone and wouldn't divulge information about the business.
If the Bucs want to know how they got the addresses, "you can have them give us a call, how about that?" he said.
"Have a good day," he added, before hanging up.
It wasn't clear Tuesday that the company really had the list.
A handful of season ticket holders called by the Times had gotten the letter, but others had not.
The company's letter describes itself as Event Services International and lists a Phoenix address, although no company by that name was registered in Arizona. The letter said the business is an independent, privately owned company that buys and sells premium tickets for national events. It isn't affiliated with any box office, theater, stadium, hotel or team, according to the letter.
The letter promised to pay for tickets in cash or by a cashier's check through Federal Express. Free pickup and delivery of tickets are available.
"A happy client is our first priority and as such we handle every transaction with the utmost discretion," the letter said.
Fred Pluskat, 43, of Redington Beach, who got the letter Monday, said its tone offended him. "They are talking about "We can discreetly set you up.' It's like you are hiring a hooker or an escort service," he said.
He's afraid the offer will help fill Raymond James Stadium with out-of-town fans.
"I want that stadium full of Bucs fans, not fans from Phoenix or Baltimore," he said.
Joe Bondi also became concerned when he received the letter. "It sounded kind of shady to me," he said.
On the way to Monday's preseason game, he told his daughter, Pam Bondi, a prosecutor at the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office, about it.
Bondi said Tuesday that authorities would have to investigate more to determine whether the proposed deal violated Florida's scalping law, which forbids the reselling of tickets for more than $1 above face value.
The carefully worded letter only offers only to pay "top dollar" for tickets, she noted.
On the phone, an employee of the company told the Times that he would pay above the ticket value for seats. But he said that's not illegal in Arizona, where the company is based.
In Florida, at least, it's the seller of the ticket -- not the buyer -- who could get charged with a misdemeanor.
"(The company) won't get in trouble," Pam Bondi said. "The season ticket holders would."
- Times staff writer David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.