'Absolute con!' Eagles fans livid over Ticketmaster problems for London game

Tickets went on sale early Tuesday morning at Ticketmaster's UK site for the Eagles' Week 8 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in London on Oct. 28. But many fans trying to purchase tickets came away frustrated.

Just minutes after the tickets went on sale, many fans were greeted with the message, "Oh-no! These tickets went fast and we're unable to find more right now."

It's the first time the Eagles, fresh off a Super Bowl win, will play a regular-season game outside the country in the team's 84-year history (though they have played four international preseason games). So it's no surprise there was a sizable crowd waiting before 5 a.m. East Coast time (10 a.m. U.K. time) to be among the first to purchase tickets.

Unfortunately, issues with Ticketmaster's website left a large number of fans unable to secure seats. Many were left waiting in a queue with no information on when, or if, they'd be able to purchase tickets — just a generic warning not to refresh the page "as you may lose your place in the queue."

Ticketmaster UK posted a message on Twitter notifying fans the site was "experiencing unprecedented demand." Four minutes later, the NFL posted a message on its official UK Twitter account, noting that only single tickets were still available for the game.

Those fans appear to be the lucky ones. Others weren't even able to connect to the ticket service at all, and were instead greeted by an ominous message: "Something went wrong…"

In addition, many fans who somehow navigated both issues, picked their seats and hit the "purchase" button were greeted with yet another problem — their international purchase was turned down by their credit card companies.

Tony Rose, an Eagles fan in Reading, Pa., had planned an entire nine-day trip around the game to multiple European countries, only to have his plans upended by Ticketmaster and his credit card company, Citi.

"By the time I tried to repurchase the tickets after explaining to @Citi, via text message of course since they weren't open at 4am, that it was me, that is when @TicketmasterUK had their problems," one would-be ticket-buyer vented on Twitter. "It was the perfect storm. Ticket prices on resale are now 5x as much. Just crazy."

That's no exaggeration. On ticketiQ, seats in the lower section of Wembley Stadium were going for more than $6,300. On StubHub, prices Tuesday morning were a bit more reasonable, with tickets along the lower sideline going for roughly $700 to $800. Tickets were also still available on London-based ticketing service Viagogo for less than $200 a ticket, but almost all the available seats were in the stadium's 500 section.

Here's just a sampling of the anger and outrage expressed by unsatisfied fans on social media Tuesday morning:

The Eagles-Jaguars contest is one of four international games the NFL is putting on this year. Others include match-ups in the new stadium of the English Premier League's Tottenham Hotspur and in Mexico City's Estadio Azteca.