That's a facepalm level of subtlety so no wonder the club is taking action if people have seen it and complained.
Guess they will look at the mugshots of those exchanging tickets like that and target them 'randomly'.
Sadly, phoning up will not get the seat transferred. The club will want to give it to someone who has paid to get on the waiting list. There will be no flexibility and even offering to pay the waiting list fee won't help.
The only options I can see is for the friend giving up the seat to buy a...
On a separate note, it would be good if there was an official mechanism to share a ST with the possibility to register one alternative person on it ( no doubt for a fee ).