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Ticket Scam Resource Center - Resources for Victims
The operator of this site cannot help to resolve specific disputes. Hopefully,
you visited this site before completing your ticketing transactions and
avoided being scammed. If you have been scammed, you might be able to find some
help on this page.
This site does not provide legal advice. If you think you need
legal advice, hire an attorney. Do not trust anything you read on the Internet.
You are responsible for conforming to all applicable laws.
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.
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.