Ticket Touting Discussion

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Mr.S wrote: »

While toutless is a great platform and I use it all the time, it's fairly easy to shift loads of cancelled tickets via it if your so inclined!

I agree this is true and I actually worry when people assume because a user is on our site they must be trustworthy. This is actually counterproductive to us as it makes us MORE attractive to scammers. Our strategy against scammers is to have an educated user base AND to have a quick response to suspicious activity. With enough effort put in by a scammer they could take anyone in but the reality is most won't waste their time if they're not getting bites and having accounts closed quickly especially as there are less vigilant communities to take advantage of.

So I'd much rather people take the most cautious approach in dealings at all times. For example we're often asked if ticketfast (aka etickets or print at home tickets) are dangerous but the reality is while it is easier for them to be printed multiple times the same risk exists with regular printed tickets of being canceled. Our advice is to treat them equally suspiciously.

Still dealing with canceled and multiple etickets is usually amateur stuff. MOST scams these days are based around getting people to send money remotely on the promise of a ticket being delivered. This used to be done with things like William Hill or Western Union transfers but more often we're seeing people use Bank Accounts and Paypal accounts as people BELIEVE these provide security. I don't know how hard it is to actually use fake credentials to setup bank accounts and paypal accounts but I do know that neither CAN help you in the case of an issue without getting courts involved. The data protection act is very clear on providing details of people to others and someone coming along to a bank with a story about promised tickets is not going to have them release information. You'd have to create a case and get a court order for the release of information.

It is not 100% guarantee but if you arrange to meet someone in person for the deal in a safe public place, ask them to bring ID, check the name on the tickets match the ID and get a camera phone pic of the ID you're going to be a lot less likely to be riped off than dealing with a stranger on the Internet. Obviously what melekalikimaka says about not buying second hand at all is the safest method so get yourself a good twitter list of promoters, music sites etc to be aware of stuff going on sale that you might be interested in.

A V A

i do this all time and advise people to do it to ask for ID , a copy of a drivers license or take a picture of it , when buying any tickets at all , i have done that on adverts when buying tickets and especially e tickets aswell, im not afraid to ask and the person selling should understand and be ok with providing some sort of proof of their id etc

i got scammed on adverts in december by a user that scammed 4 or 5 other users for the value of 400 euro and up , a certain rep from adverts would not give out details of this user even tho the transactions were all done by bank account, which is understandable adverts rep sticket to the rules under the data protection act , but still my case and the other users that were scammed , we made a case and we all reported our cases , we even met up , those of us from dublin , to decide what the plan was and kept the people that were not from dublin in the loop. they got away with a substantial amount of money so you would think the guards would simply just get in touch with adverts and get the bank info and go from there.

people should be carefull with tickets aswell, as a year or two ago , i bought tickets from a woman that was 100% legit , met her outside the hospital were she worked and bought tickets , came to the night of the event and they were cancelled, we were made a show of and it was humiliating , turns out she bought them from a polish couple and then sold hem on to us , she bought them at a touted price and sold them on for even a more profit !! its just a never ending story with concert tickets

lordgoat

From a personal point of view. I have no sympathy for anyone that gets ripped off paying over the face value for a ticket. You used a tout. You got burned. Again this might sound harsh but if no one bought above face value tickets there would be no touts. It's a simplistic view i know but it's one I hold to. I'd rather not go to a concert than pay over the asking to a tout.