Ebay / Ticketmaster Question
 

Has anyone every bought / sold tickets through Ebay that were provided through Ticketmaster's ticketfast program (where they email you the tickets, and you print them out)?

What keeps the seller from just selling tons of copies and then disappearing? On the flip side, what keeps a buyer from getting them and then claiming that they didn't work? Seems this isn't the best type of ticket to buy or sell on Ebay.

I'm looking at buying some RHCP tickets, but wanted to know how risky this is....

Bob

Well, I haven't, but I had a friend who bought some Pacers playoff game tickets that sounded like this, and he went to the game, if that's any help.

I assume that if you are the seller, the arena or whatever could tell how many times your ticket was used (or attempted to be used, after the first time), so a seller could be ok. But the buyer still seems out of luck if someone else with a copy of the same ticket beats you there first.

Well, it would be pretty obvious if he was ebaying the same seats over and over again, I would think.

Not in this case, as it is a general admission show (no seat numbers at all). And there are not pictures of the tickets in the listing, or any other listings (lots of tickets for the show are on there), so it still seems easy to get burned.

The TicketFast tickets are only usable once. The little scanners they use at the gates warn the ticket taker whether it's already been used or not.

So, yes, after the first person in uses a given seat's ticket, the rest are out of luck.

I purchased a set of tickets for Duran Duran that way, just recently.

As with any ebay auction...make sure you look at the sellers feedback. You shouldn't have to worry about that problem with good feedback.

Basically, the ticket that you print out can be used by somebody else. The scanners at the venue record the first time that ticket number gets scanned. In theory, a bad seller could print out multiple copies, sell them and be gone. The first ticket scanned would get in. The rest would be denied.

My boss and I both bought 2 tickets with this feature. Neither of us had any problems. I would feel safer purchasing these types of tickets than regular tickets, off of ebay.

Why's that? Because they can email them to you right away?

Yeah. Takes having to meet a stranger (in a possible strange place...like a gay bar...hehe) out of the picture.

Actually, I know more people who have gotten bogus regular tickets than bogus print outs. Not from ebay, but from scalpers and such.