Ticket Scam Resource Center - Resources for Victims

What do I do when my ticket is legitimate, but someone claims my seat?

First, stay cool. The person claiming your seat may be the innocent victim of a scam. When you enter a venue, keep your tickets, even if you're a well known season ticket holder and you know where your seats are. For major events, arrive early so that your empty seat doesn't attract a scam. It can't hurt to bring your advance-sale receipt, which has an order number that might be useful to venue employees. When you win the dispute for your seat, you will understand why you paid $8 in "convenience charges". If you didn't buy your ticket from a primary source, such as the box office or TicketMaster, accept the fact that it might be your ticket that is bogus. If you play nice with the venue staff, they might let you stay for the show.

What do I do when I paid money but didn't get the promised tickets?

There's a difference between "lousy seats" and "refused entry". Maybe the tickets you bought were misrepresented by the seller, but if you saw the show as expected, you'll have to argue pretty hard to get your money back. This site is mainly concerned with victims who couldn't enter the venue or ended up in a vastly inferior seat.

eBay and PayPal suggest that you first try to negotiate with the ticket seller, i.e., the person to whom you sent money, but who failed to provide usable tickets. If this attempt fails, eBay and PayPal can help to mediate, and they are generally interested in resolving disputes. It is beneficial to eBay and PayPal if they can keep the number of unhappy consumers to a minimum.

If you paid by credit card, your credit card company probably provides some purchase protection. Call the credit card company and try to dispute the charge, and the credit card company will begin their investigation. You can't wait forever to do this, but you can probably dispute the charge even after you've already paid that bill. For example, you might buy tickets in January for a March concert, only to find in March that the tickets are bogus. Just don't wait until June to attempt to dispute the charge.

Here is some US Government information about scams,
http://www.consumer.gov/search/site/scams.

Of course, you can always call the police. You'll probably get more attention from the police in the area of the seller, rather than your own local force. If an interstate transaction was involved, you might try the FBI. Your state attorney general's office might help. If you can't identify the seller, such as an eBay seller who manages to anonymously accept your payment, you should contact your attorney general so they can at least record the problem.