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Thomas Edison unveils the phonograph, 21 Nov 1877.
Ticket Scam Resource Center - Event Scams
Scams are usually associated with high-demand, mainstream events. Some events are relatively expensive but have only a
moderate demand, such as classical orchestra concerts. While these concerts may
sell out, the demand usually isn't high enough to spur the creation of a
secondary (scalper's) ticket market. However, the prices are high enough to
generate a small amount of counterfeiting, so this page still applies.
Scams are usually associated with high-demand,
mainstream events. Some events are relatively expensive but have only a
moderate demand, such as classical orchestra concerts. While these concerts may
sell out, the demand usually isn't high enough to spur the creation of a
secondary (scalper's) ticket market. However, the prices are high enough to
generate a small amount of counterfeiting, so this page still applies.
Scams tend to victimize those rabid fans who will do anything and spend any
amount to attend certain events. In their zeal to get any ticket from any
source, they sometimes aren't careful, and become victims. The first line of
defense against getting victimized is to stay calm. Even if you don't get
tickets at first, you've probably got weeks to hit up on friends and haggle
with reputable brokers. Immediately after a sellout, there will be a chunk of
tickets available, so wait until just before the event and haggle the price
down. Investigate the available ticket sources and trust your gut feelings. If
you buy products from an unverifiable, out-of-state source, you're taking a big risk.
Ticketing scams are NOT RARE, and include previously used tickets, resale of
lost or stolen tickets, online auction fraud, counterfeiting, tickets for
non-existent events, fictitious tickets, and fake web sites. Also mentioned
here is a lottery ticket scam.
Previously used tickets
TicketMaster tickets and other modern tickets, especially for high-demand
events, are bar coded and uniquely numbered. This allows the ticketing agency
to electronically verify the ticket with a scanner at the entry to the venue.
The scam relies on the fact that these tickets are not marked or torn; they are
usually handed back to the customer. But if the customer discards the ticket,
it looks to the naked eye like a valid ticket, even though the computer knows
that the ticket has already been used.
So, a venue insider (such as a security employee) grabs a couple of discarded
tickets and exits the building. On the outside, the tickets are scalped at a
seemingly bargain rate to an unsuspecting fan. With ticket prices the way they
are these days, the scalper can make a couple hundred bucks pretty quickly. At
the gate, the tickets are scanned and the computer rejects them, since they
have already been used. The fan runs back outside to beat the crap out of the
scalper, but the scalper has reentered the building through an employee
entrance, where the rejected fan will never see him.
Another possibility is that a legitimate ticket holder enters the venue and
keeps the ticket, as usual. The ticket holder leaves the event early and scalps
the ticket on the street for a seemingly bargain price, since the event has
already begun. By the time the already-used ticket is rejected by the gate
scanner, the original ticket holder is long gone and the second buyer loses his
or her money.
Resale of lost/stolen tickets
Since tickets are uniquely identifiable, an original purchaser can report a
ticket as having been lost or stolen or destroyed, and the ticketing agency can
invalidate the ticket and issue a replacement with a new ID. If someone tries
to enter a venue with a ticket whose ID has been reported as lost or stolen,
the scanner will reject that ticket. The holder of that bad ticket probably
didn't find or steal the tickets. The holder probably bought the tickets on
eBay or from a scalper who found or stole the tickets.
Even brokers can be victimized, since many tickets sold by brokers were
acquired by the broker from individuals who may have stolen the tickets. A
ticket may not be immediately reported as lost, so even if the broker or buyer
can verify the ticket with the ticketing agency, the ticket might be
invalidated at a later date. When a consumer buys what turns out to be a bad
ticket from a broker, the consumer will get refunded. But it's still a
frustrating problem. Be diligent about verifying tickets and tracing their
history.
Online auctions (eBay)
Most eBay sellers and buyers are honest folks who just want to turn one
person's trash into another person's treasure. But there are many people who
make a living out of selling stuff on eBay, and the ticket market is easy to
use in this way. Tickets are initially available online at face value, and can
be resold online for a profit. You will often encounter eBay ticket sellers
with multiple auctions for tickets to multiple events. These aren't
professional brokers, but they make a regular profit. While eBay keeps much
personal information hidden, eBay does provide ways to contact sellers and get
some information. Try to contact any ticket seller, and ask for a response. If
email bounces, inform eBay and don't deal with that seller. Don't contact other
bidders; let eBay do that. If the seller won't respond, take that as a sign
that he or she won't be committed to resolving disputes.
The problem with tickets purchased on eBay is that it is difficult to trace the
ticket history. You don't know if the tickets came directly from the venue or
TicketMaster, or if the tickets were found on the street or stolen from a
parked car. Sellers of tickets may be practically anywhere in the world, so
tracking down the seller to resolve a dispute can be difficult. eBay can cancel
a disreputable account, but you've still lost real money.
The tickets you buy via an online auction might be valid tickets for something,
but not for what you think they're for. Before you buy, be sure to contact
the seller and resolve any questions. The seller might claim that the tickets
are for great seats, dead center, close up, but then the seats turn out to be
in East Timbuktu. This could be considered fraud, and you might have a case for
a dispute. But to some extent, it's caveat emptor. Almost every large venue in
North America has a web site with a seating chart, so ask the seller about the
seat location and look it up, and save all letters and emails.
According to
this article from ZDNet News,
eBay claims that less than one one-hundredth of one percent
of eBay transactions are confirmed to be fraudulent, but that's potentially
hundreds of fraudulent transactions
per day. Ticket scams account for
more eBay fraud than any other single merchandise category. In 2008, Gregg and
Scott
(Communications of the ACM, April, 2008)
reported 0.73 complaints per 100 eBay comments in a sampling of over 1 million
comments during 2003 and 2005. In other words, in this time frame, a little
under 1% of eBay comments from auction winners were negative comments about the
sellers. The authors also concluded that their study of eBay's reputation
system indicated that the rate of improper transactions, fraudulent or
accidental or otherwise, is higher than admitted by eBay.
Counterfeit tickets
Ultimately, we'll all have electronic chips implanted in our arms, and access
to events will be digitally stored there. But as long as paper tickets remain a
means of providing access to events, counterfeiting will continue to be a
problem. Consumers should strive to purchase tickets directly from a ticketing
agency, such as a venue box office, TicketMaster, etc. Otherwise, attempt to
verify the history of the tickets, such as by asking to see a TicketMaster
receipt or order description. This is difficult when dealing with eBay sellers
and street scalpers, who may themselves have acquired tickets from secondary sources.
TicketMaster and other high end ticket sources usually issue high-quality
tickets, especially to high-demand events where fraud may be a problem. These
tickets contain colors, watermarks, special graphics, bar codes, serial
numbers, ultraviolet marks, and other security features. If you acquire a
questionable ticket in advance (such as via eBay), bring it to a ticket outlet
in advance of the event for verification.
Verification of a ticket in advance can be difficult. Ticketing agencies have
little motivation to help with secondary market customers, and may refuse to
help or claim that they have no way to help, especially if the ticket holder
has no receipt.
Counterfeits are usually produced by modifying tickets for some other event.
Even if a sophisticated counterfeiter can produce tickets from scratch, the
quality will probably be poorer than original tickets.
The writing may scratch off or smear easily. Look for White-Out.
The original ticket's writing may not use the same number of letters as the
target event's name, so the counterfeiter might use minor misspellings to get
everything to fit.
There are some reports of copied bar codes. Since modern ticket-takers no
longer actually read a ticket, and only scan the barcode, the ticket itself can
say almost anything. A counterfeiter somehow gets a valid barcode from some
other ticket, counterfeits it onto a bogus ticket, and arrives at the venue
early. The ticket is accepted, but later on, the actual valid ticket (with the
duplicated barcode) is rejected. If the bogus ticket holder actually sits in
the fraudulently acquired seat, venue security personnel will eventually catch
on. One of the things you get for TicketMaster's high fees is a guarantee that
you'll survive any dispute over your seats.
For TicketMaster tickets, use the following detection methods:
Look for an X code, which signifies the order in which the seating sections are
sold. If you have upper deck seats with an X2 code, that's probably bogus.
Tickets issued together (in the same purchase) will have consecutive, red
serial numbers on the back.
Under a black light, a hidden logo will appear. Before the event, take the
tickets to a Spencer Gifts store in your local mall and use one of their
display lights.
Hold a lighter flame to the ticket, and you'll see a distinctive discoloration
on the opposite side of the ticket.
Scratch the surface with a fingernail or coin, and you'll see a black scratch.
Another type of bar code scam involves the use of home-printed tickets. For
some events, tickets can be purchased online and printed on a home printer,
resulting in a sheet of paper with a bar code. The sheet can be copied (many
times) on a photocopier and sold to unsuspecting fans. The fact that it's a
photocopy is not a problem. This scam is occurring in 2006, and it seems almost
unfathomable that ticketing agencies never expected this. At the venue, the
first ticket holder to enter is seated, and a conflict arises when additional
ticket holders want the same seats. The scam can unravel for the scalper if two
fans who know each other purchase tickets from the same scalper and realize
they have the same seats. Typically, for home-printed movie tickets, the coded
sheets must be traded at the box office for actual tickets. While movie
theaters don't usually offer reserved seating, this box office visit would at
least avoid the unpleasant conflict inside the venue, for reserved seating
events. This type of scam can be fairly sophisticated, if the scalper uses
disposable cell phones and faked identification to buy and advertise the tickets.
Non-existent events and fictitious tickets
One scam involved a travel agency selling packages for tickets, transportation,
and lodging, all associated with a particular concert. The concert was never
scheduled, but the fans apparently didn't know this. Eventually, the travel
agency claimed that the concert had been canceled. They gave refunds but kept
about $25 in non-refundable fees. The scam was uncovered, but the lesson is to
double-check the scheduling of events when purchasing tickets from a secondary source
Similarly, watch out for travel excursions to popular events that are really
just hotel stays in the area of the event. In other words, when you book your Super
Bowl Mega Blast, be sure that game tickets are specifically promised.
If the trip description says accommodations on the night of the game,
don't assume that you'll also get tickets to the game. This can be an illegal
misrepresentation, depending on the wording. In some states, the tour operator
is required to possess tickets at the time they are offered for sale, so if the
tour operator claims at the last minute that tickets could not be acquired, but
your deposit is non-refundable, a scam has occurred.
If an artist announces a concert tour and announces the dates for ticket sales,
and a broker offers tickets for sale before those announced sale dates, it is
possible that the broker does not actually possess the tickets. The broker is
just trying to generate sales or estimate demand. If a buyer comes forward, the
broker will attempt to get the actual tickets along with everyone else, when
the tickets go on sale. If the broker can't get the tickets, the buyer is
refunded or is provided with different tickets. But if you're such a rabid fan
that you buy from a broker, a refund isn't much consolation. In many North
American jurisdictions, the seller is required by law to disclose the fact that
the tickets are not actually in hand.
Fake mirror sites
A fake mirror site is a web site with a name that is close to a legitimate
site, and pretends to perform the actions of the legitimate site. A specific
scam involved sydneyopera.org, a scam site that mirrored the actual
sydneyoperahouse.com. The scam site actually accepted payments for tickets, but
the tickets were never provided and the seats were not reserved. The scam began
to unravel when a purchaser in Australia noticed that the credit card
transaction had been performed in US dollars, rather than pounds. The operators
are on the run and the scam site has been shut down. This type of scam is short
lived, because once the event takes place, the patrons learn that they have no
seats. But by that time, thousands of dollars may have changed hands.
Presale clubs
One of the biggest fan gripes, recently, is that even when TicketMaster's
servers don't crash, fans still can't get good seats. So, promoters like Clear
Channel allow fans to pay money to join a club to get advance access to better
seats. Sure, thousands of fans can pay $60 to get access to hundreds of seats.
If you don't get seats through the pre-sale, you have to jump through hoops to
get a refund. These clubs are such blatant gouges of fans that they just have
to be considered as scams on this web site.
Brokerage bait-and-switch
Brokers are the used car salesmen of the ticketing industry. A broker's online
inventory is often displayed with disclaimers that state that a buyer might
order tickets that the broker doesn't actually have in the inventory. The
explanation is that the inventories can't be updated in true real time, and a
buyer might order tickets that were recently ordered by someone else. The
broker's response would then be to offer different tickets, at the buyer's
option. This sounds OK, but this allows brokers to put just about anything
online, and then when someone actually places an order, the broker can say,
"Oh, someone just bought those, but we have these OTHER tickets." This is an
illegal bait-and-switch scam for a licensed broker, but usually impossible to prove.
Scams against sellers
This site is generally concerned with scams against buyers. We all know about
rubber checks, checks that are "in the mail", forgeries, etc. When you deal
with strangers, you expose yourself to these kinds of fraud. You're in the
business of scalping tickets, which is shady to begin with, so don't be
surprised if you meet characters who are even shadier than yourself.
Counterfeit lottery tickets
This site is concerned with event ticket scams, but a lottery ticket scam that
is getting some news coverage lately exhibits some similarities to other ticket
scams. Lotteries, like events, use small, bar-coded paper tickets. This site
does not cover email-based scams involving fake lottery announcements. If
someone sends you an email telling you that you have won a lottery that you
never entered and probably never even heard of, just delete the email.
The lottery ticket scam involves a counterfeited ticket and a personal
approach. Con artists profile their victims, and this particular scam often
involves victims who see some connection to the con artist. First, the con
artist acquires a losing lottery ticket, through legitimate purchase or from a
trash can, etc. It is helpful to have a number of losing tickets, in order to
find one with some matching numbers that will be easier to modify so that it
appears to have the actual winning numbers for a specific drawing. The
counterfeit would not pass an inspection by the lottery organization, but it's
good enough to fool carefully selected victims (such as someone with poor eyesight).
The con artist approaches the victim with a story of possessing a winning
lottery ticket, but not being able to cash in. For example, the con artist may
claim to be an illegal alien who can't provide a social security number for tax
purposes. The victim is often an elderly immigrant who may be sympathetic to
other immigrants, including illegals. The con artist promises to split the
winnings of the lottery ticket, but needs some cash from the victim. The con
artist may show the victim a newspaper with the winning numbers that match the
counterfeited ticket. Often, the victim is approached while leaving a bank,
where a deposit or withdrawal may have just taken place.
The cash is requested from the victim as a "good faith" payment in exchange for
the eventual sharing of the large lottery payout. The con artist may claim some
hardship. Victims who are immigrants themselves may be sympathetic to a story
about a large, hungry family about to be evicted from living quarters. They
need cash right away, and have a winning lottery ticket, and they'll share the
winnings, but again, they need some cash right away.
The con artist may sell the counterfeit ticket to the victim and depart, or the
con artist may make some other arrangement that involves cashing in the ticket
and splitting the winnings. The con may involve multiple grifters, such as one
who poses as an illegal alien, and another who poses as an attorney who just
happens to overhear the conversation with the victim. The notion of an
immigrant who became an attorney is intended to nudge a hesitant victim to have
more faith. The con attorney explains the legal loopholes that will allow the
victim to get rich by helping a fellow immigrant in need. Often, a couple is
victimized together, in the hopes that the two will convince each other that
this is actually a good thing.
No stranger in a bank parking lot wants to give you money.