Unapproved solicitors selling tickets to a paintball arena near campus this week caused much confusion for students, faculty, staff and the paintball business they were contracted to represent, so much so as to fuel scam rumors.
Student complaints about a possible scam reached investigating office with the UH Department of Public Safety, which then contacted the Urban War Zone Paintball company, said Executive Director of Media Relations and Digital Programming Richard Bonnin.
“The marketers who came to the University did not seek approval from the Dean of Students to sell or distribute materials on campus,” Bonnin said. “The distribution or posting of commercial literature and/or other items for personal gain on campus is prohibited. In addition, state law prohibits the University from permitting its facilities and grounds to be used for personal gain.”
Representatives for a New York-based marketing company began selling discounted paintball tickets on Monday at both the UH Main Campus and the UH-Downtown, said War Zone owner and UH alumnus Joshua Briggs.
“We had talked to the company doing the promotion over a year ago but nothing ever came of our discussions,” Briggs said. “(Tuesday) morning we began getting phone calls from U of H students asking about a promotion that we didn’t recognize — we had absolutely no idea they were going to be on campus this week or any week. We were just as surprised as anyone when they showed up on campus selling the tickets to students.”
Briggs said they tried contacting the marketing company but were unable to reach anyone for some time. When his staff could not make sense of the promotion, rumors that it was a scam began circulating the Internet via the UH Reddit page and social app Yik Yak.
“We have been averaging (more than) 10 calls per hour since (Tuesday) including calls from campus police and student liaisons and we’re actually taking calls and responding to emails up until midnight,” Briggs said. “It’s been incredibly stressful, because so many people were concerned that they had lost their money.”
According to online reports on the situation, the marketers targeted large auditorium classes, such as philosophy sophomore Rony Ortiz’ math class.
“This guy came into my class (on Tuesday),” Ortiz said. “He (made) the announcement before class (and) told the professor it would be quick. He said he was from an organization that helped students having fun outside of class for some cheap paintball place close to UH.”
Ortiz said the vendor then began collecting payments during the class, both in cash and in credit through a device attached to an iPhone.
“It’s fair to say that the biggest concern was that credit card information may have been compromised,” Briggs said. “That isn’t true.”
After telling students that they would honor the tickets, Briggs said a subsequent rumor developed.
“One of the rumors floating around was that we were going to honor the tickets this weekend only and that is not true,” Briggs said. “You can use the tickets any Friday, Saturday or Sunday (and) we will honor them until the expiration date in 2017. Despite the confusion, the deal is a really good one and that is the message we want people understand. We really do want everyone to come out and have a great time.”
Urban War Zone Paintball has been around since 2006 at 2315 Telephone Road..
