Students busted for renting out CarolinaCards face conduct charges
When second-year English student Sarah Edwards opened her inbox Wednesday night, she wasn’t expecting an email revoking her student tickets for the rest of the year.
Edwards was one of dozens, if not hundreds, of students who have posted online offers to pay for or sell their ticket to this weekend’s football game against Georgia. Facebook groups of USC students have served as a black market for student section tickets, flooded with posts like this since the beginning of football season. Some students who were not awarded lower deck season tickets over the summer or who hoped to treat visiting friends and siblings to a game in the student section have taken to trading cash for the day’s use of a fellow student’s CarolinaCard.
“I commented on one post, asking [to buy] a student ticket and saying that I would consider it,” Edwards said. “All communications after that were done through private messaging.”
But that comment was enough for another student to report Edwards to the Student Ticketing Office. As of Wednesday night, she was one of a dozen students who had been reported by their peers for attempting to buy or sell student tickets.
That’s a clear violation of the student code of conduct, according to Director of Student Services Anna Edwards.
Anna Edwards, no relation to Sarah, said these types of incidents have occurred in years past before high-profile football games.
“It usually happens for one game each year,” she said. “Last year it was the Auburn game, the year before that it was the Alabama game, this year it’s Georgia.”
She said this was the first time she’d heard of students doing it on Facebook — reports in years past have come from eBay and CraigsList.
The 12 students reported not only lost their season ticket, but were referred to student conduct for misuse of documents, according to the email they received from the Ticketing office. The message identified its recipients as students who attempted to sell student tickets, which caused some confusion for those reported for offering to purchase the tickets.
“I don’t have season tickets, so, in theory, I don’t even have a ticket to be selling,” Sarah Edwards said. “What they are accusing me of is impossible.”
She was surprised she was punished after only inquiring about buying another student’s ticket.
“It’s not fair at all ... especially if the specific act of selling was not even followed through with,” she said. “There should be some kind of warning, or a suspension or even just stricter security.”
Anna Edwards said it’s difficult for her to hear students complaining about not getting into games when they and their peers are leaving early or trying to turn a profit on their tickets.
“If you have a ticket, just go to the game,” she said.