SPEEDWAY, Ind. — The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is putting out a warning after discovering crooks are selling counterfeit parking passes for the Indianapolis 500 online.
Police are investigating the crime and leaders at the track want to make sure fans don't get scammed.
Bernie Sewell picked up his tickets for the 107th Indianapolis 500 Tuesday at the speedway's ticket office. His parking plan for race day is already set, since he also works at the IMS Museum.
But for fans still in the market, there's a new warning about an old trick.
"Yep, you gotta look out for the counterfeiters," Sewell said. "That's a problem."
"It's awful and it doesn't surprise me a bit," said race fan Bill Sackman. "People are out to make a buck."
Apparently lot of bucks, with bogus parking passes sold online.
"In the last week, we've started getting customers literally bringing in photocopied parking passes that they're buying for three and four times face value on ticket platforms," said IMS president Doug Boles.
IMS just discovered the problem, thanks to an Indianapolis print shop noticing red flags and reaching out to the track. They said someone came in the shop, printed off parking passes and passed them on as the real deal.
The track says last year they had some parking issues, but weren't sure why. Turns out, Boles said they've now learned crooks were the cause.
And they're at it again.
"It sounded like at one point last year, as many of 250 were printed. But we don't have any idea about this year," he said.
IMS has contacted IMPD, so detectives are now on the case on the criminal side.
Meanwhile, if you bought a parking pass online, Boles recommends taking a closer look. Then call the Speedway's ticket office or take it there to confirm it's legit.
"And then if we determine it's fake, then the next best thing is to really reach out to that secondary platform where you bought it, talk to your credit card company, issue a dispute on the payment and make sure you get that taken care of," Boles said.
The last thing you need on race day is to get stopped at the gate while trying to park because of a fake pass.