Live music is an excellent way for people to create and share live experiences. In an ideal world, everyone should be able to attend any event of their choosing but with limited space and ticket touters, you may miss out on the initial run of tickets. Your only option may be to rely on buying resale tickets.
This blog discusses how to protect yourself when buying reseller tickets. To do this we discuss how to spot scammers on social media sites like Facebook, use verified links and make some recommendations on how to protect yourself.
Before we proceed, quick shout! Check out Quest Reseller, it’s an excellent tool that allows users to buy and resell tickets safely. It prides itself on being quick and safe with some amazing tools e.g. sellers can password-protect their tickets, chat with sellers and have no price cap.
Back to business, how to buy resale tickets safely.
Social Media To Buy Resale Tickets
In general, most users tend to post on Facebook or Twitter asking if anyone has spare tickets. While thoughtful about 90% of people who contact you are most likely scammers. Bold statement! we know but with the ease of creating fake profiles, especially on Facebook, scammers see this as an excellent tool to defraud people. On Facebook, scammers tend to create fake profiles using stolen pictures that may look legit.
You can spot them by checking if their name matches their Facebook URL. For example, this profile Facebook name is Rianna Harrison:
But their Facebook URL is assumpta. umeh.
We can safely assume their Facebook profile is fake.
You should also check their Facebook friend list to see if their friends are people you would expect them to have. If someone is living in Bristol, their friends should be in the surrounding areas. Please note that some scammers are known to create multiple Facebook profiles to seem legit.
It’s 2023, no one has less than 10 friends on Facebook. If they do, they are likely scammers.
There’s also a design flaw on Facebook’s platform that allows users to change old pictures but keep existing engagement e.g. let’s say a user posted a picture a few months back and it amassed 100 likes. The same user can change the picture but the likes remain making it look legit.
If you ever decide to use Facebook:
- you should only buy it if the seller provides a verified link (e.g. Quest Reseller, Stubhub).
- Use the Paypal “goods and services” option when making payments.
- Sites like Ticketmaster allow you to transfer tickets, use that if possible.
Ticket Resale Sites
The next source is using sites like Ticketmaster or StubHub. You may think I’m buying from a verified source, the ticket is 100% legit. The issue is that the seller may be selling the tickets on multiple sites so while you bought a legit ticket, you got the same tickets as the next John Doe. You may end up in a situation where you get to the venue and your tickets have already been used as experienced by the person below.
To be safe, buy resale tickets from first-party resellers i.e. where the original tickets were sold or use reputable ticket sites with lots of event partners.
Buying Resale Tickets At the Door
Didn’t find resale tickets on social media sites or verified ticket outlets. The next option is to try to see if someone is selling their tickets at the door. Please be wary of this, the seller may sell you an invalid ticket and you may have no way of contacting them. To protect yourself, have them follow you to the entrance while you try the tickets or avoid this in general.
In conclusion, the ease of buying resale tickets online has led to a boom in the reseller industry and has allowed people to buy tickets with ease. Sadly we have bad actors and in this case, we should proactively try to keep ourselves safe.