Savannah Bananas step up to the plate providing free tickets to Oklahoma family scammed out of tickets
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — One of the biggest events going on this weekend is the Savannah Bananas baseball games at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. It is bringing thousands to the stadium each night and with three completely sold-out games, fans are willing to do almost anything to get their hands on some tickets. One Oklahoma family sent money to the wrong person.
Unfortunately, a Sulphur family's dreams were dashed when they realized their tickets never arrived. Their grandmother did not notice the red flags alerting her she was getting scammed. Now they don't have seats for this weekend's games.
“I just was stupid. I just had my heart set on taking my grandkids and it was too good to be true,” said Dana Bradley, scammed out of Savannah Banana tickets.
Dana Bradley is devastated after she paid someone she had been communicating with through Facebook $150 for tickets to the sold-out Savannah Banana games. The seller ended up ghosting her and pocketing the money she sent through PayPal.
“I hope he sees this, and I hope he learns not to scam someone else because it's not about the money. He hurt three little kids on top of the grandma and grandpa, but the three little kids were all excited,” said Bradley.
Bradley says she is not nearly upset about losing the money as she is disappointing her three grandchildren. She wanted a fun evening to help boost their spirits after the tornado.
“Us coming from Sulphur and what we just went through and the devastation. My grandkids could use some joy, you know, some happiness. And I think there would have been a lot of giggling and laughing going on at that baseball game,” said Bradley.
“Dana used to cut my hair when I was a little kid,” said Mat Wolf, Savannah Bananas player.
Not only was Bradley’s family excited for the game, but they also wanted to see a familiar face pitch for the team. Dana and Mat Wolf go way back.
“She goes, yeah, I'm going to buy them. I don't care. I'm going to buy them no matter what. It's worth the risk. And unfortunately, she got scammed — I was very bummed out, you know, that people would do that,” said Wolf.
The Savannah Banana’s say they frequently come across ticket scams and warn everyone to be on alert for con artists.
“It's truly an unfortunate situation that we wish we could do much more and right. As far as this particular situation, you know, our team would like to take a look into it and see what we can do and see if there's anything possibly we could do,” said Nick Alo, Ticket Operations Coordinator with the Savannah Bananas.
Your best bet is always buying directly from the organization. The $35 tickets traditionally go on sale about two months prior to game day.
“The only thing that we can guarantee ticket wise is to purchase through our lottery. Anything else, any other websites and anything like that, we cannot guarantee authenticity there,” said Alo.
The Savannah Bananas stepped up to the plate! They are giving the Bradley family five tickets for Saturday’s game! If you don’t have tickets and want to catch the action, the Savannah Bananas steam games on their YouTube channel.
You can also catch their exciting dances, stunts and tricks on their Tik Tok account at @TheSavBananas.