...And that's how my husband ended up on the eleven o'clock evening news...

Those of you who don't know my husbands side of the family, should know that they are absolute Eagle's fans.  They love the Eagles, win or loose, they will watch every game, they will also watch every game of their opponents to see how they will measure up.  They can't get enough.  They get the same high from watching the Eagles that I do when I go shopping and find an amazing deal on high quality fabulous things I want.  Sports are their drugs.  Especially football for Scott.  I never thought I'd marry into a family of Jocks, but it's actually very entertaining.  These boys are nuts.
Soooo naturally since the Eagles made it to the Playoffs this year, they wanted to get tickets to the next upcoming game.  They thought it best that they go through craigslist to see if they could avoid processing fees and possibly come up with a good deal.
Carefully, they searched the ads, carefully they asked questions to every potential seller to not get scammed.  They asked for pictures of the tickets, they asked for details.  Some people seemed too shady, some people wanted to meet in weird places, some people weren't giving enough details.  They read an article online about fake tickets being sold to hundreds of people every game.  They were determined not to let it happen to them.
They found a woman who said she could sell them the tickets.  When they called her, she was very detailed.  They could hear her kids running around the house in the background, she seemed safe.  She walked them through a step by step process where they could purchase prepaid debit cards through their local CVS and pay with those.  The cards also had a pin number along with a lot of other numbers.  She said she needed the pin number to be able to transfer the money, that it would not give her access to the card, just transfer their names to the tickets.  She sounded like she knew what she was talking about.  So they give her the pin number.
Long story short, the money on their card disappeared, and there were no tickets.  They'd been had.  They were swindled. They were suckers, chumps, patsy's, saps, and dupes.  As careful as they tried to be, they were scammed.  
Yes it's a shame, yes a lot of money went down the tube, but me, being who I am, still couldn't stop giggling at the irony of them being as careful as they possibly could, and still getting scammed anyway.  It was so ridiculous that it was hilarious. I've been told many times that my sense of humor is somewhat heartless.  This proved it because I thought this was the funniest thing ever. They tried to go through a third party so they could save money on the processing fee because they didn't want to loose any unnecessary money. Instead they lost all of it.  I laughed so hard when Scott told me, that even he started laughing too.  He admitted that it was a funny story. 
Dan on the other hand, who also went in with Scott to pay for these four tickets...900 dollars to be exact was not so amused.  He was furious.  Even though he knew the phone number was probably off of a prepaid card or phone, he still sent the phone number to the University of Phoenix, Golds Gym, and many many other organizations guaranteed to harass the crap out of them, just in case.  Then he wrote a letter to the local radio station, and called CBS news to tell them what happened. In his words, "I'm a salesman, I never give up, I do this for a living."  Well, turns out, CBS picked up their story.
I filmed the TV with my phone so this is a crappy copy of the clip with my baby briefly coughing for a moment in the background.  I may replace it later when I get a better, digital copy, but for now, here you go:



Oh and HERE is the link to the story on the web.

Once again, while I was sitting on the living room couch with Scott next to me, I burst out laughing while watching them on the news.  Especially because they were labeled as "Dan Itri, Scam Victim" and "Scott Itri, Scam victim."  Anyone who knows these boys and how careful they are with their money would laugh at this irony also.  They are usually so careful and so good at avoiding this kind of thing, but they were just so excited to pull the trigger on those tickets that they got bamboozled.

Well this sad story has a happy ending.  The radio DJ who was sent their story, caught their story on the news and contacted the Philadelphia Eagles themselves.  The Philadelphia Eagles organization, who sympathized, sent them all free tickets to the playoff game.  So Rob, Dan, Scott, and our friend Ed all went to the game, AND had the amazing seats that they thought they were paying for in the first place.  Honestly, I think Nick was up there pulling some strings for his sons to get to go to the game.  He loved the Eagles, and passed that love down to his kids, and he was making sure they got to see them in the playoffs.

I made Scott take pictures and video for this post.  Unfortunately he was having so much fun, he didn't take as many as I wanted, nor of the views I asked for, but here is what I do have:

The Lincoln Financial Field, where they play

Their fabulous seats

The three brothers.  It was 20 degrees outside in humid Philadelphia, so they're all dressed like marshmallows with 50 layers of clothing to keep from freezing to death. 

Video of the view from their seats:



Two minute clip of the Eagles running out on the field for those who care to see it (skip to 1:10):


And finally, the joy of singing the Eagles fight song in the stadium. FLY EAGLES FLY!:



In spite of the fact that I teased Scott about the scamming thing, I was really happy and excited for him.  I was so excited for him in fact, that I even had the game on at home and watched most of it without Scott there.  Another Eagles miracle. HA!  ( I did have a movie on the computer on at the same time, but I would often pause the movie to see different parts of the game. Scott would be so proud.)   Even though they lost by one stupid point, this will always be a great memory and story.

I waited up for Scott to get home, and he brought back sandwiches from WaWa.  (For my West Coast friends, "WaWa" by the way, has sandwiches way better than Subway, and they're open 24 hours.)  So at the end of the night there we were eating sandwiches at two in the morning together and talking about how our day went.  It was a good day for everyone.  I loved hearing about how it went and the fun they had.  You know you really love someone when you're extremely excited for that person to enjoy something that you aren't really passionate about, simply because it brings them joy.  That's how I felt that night.  I'm glad they got to see their playoffs game.