Identifying Scalped Tickets

When a concert is sold out, fans who make it into the venue often bond around how much they paid for their tickets. Often shelling out many times the value of the original ticket, they've almost invariably bought them online, either from a vendor, like StubHub, or an individual, via Craigslist, eBay, or the like. While most sporting events are still complete with who we think of as “scalpers, ” pr people who offer their tickets outside the front gate, right up to game time, the face of ticket scalping has drastically changed -- and authorized ticket sellers aren't happy about it.

What is a Scalped Ticket?



When a major venue holds an event, it usually contracts out ticket sales to an outside vendor. The most well-known of these vendors is Ticketmaster. When people started buying tickets online a few years ago, a new market opened up: “flipping," or reselling, the tickets for a hefty markup. Vendors hired people to aggressively buy large quantities of tickets online or over the phone the instant they went on sale—selling out events in record time. They then double or even tripled the price of the ticket and re-sell it to people who couldn't purchase it fast enough through traditional means. Any ticket not bought directly from the venue or the venue's authorized vendor is a scalped ticket.



What's the Problem?



There are a few problems with this system. First and foremost, it's unfair for the concertgoer to pay such a huge markup to see a show. And competing against companies that hire 10 or 15 people to snap up tickets as soon as they're available, these individuals don't hold much of a chance of seeing a show for the face value of a ticket. But the other problem facing ordinary ticket buyers is the possibility that scalped tickets will be fraudulent.



When you buy a ticket through any agency other than the one issuing it, you have no guarantee that the piece of paper will actually enable your admittance. The type of ticket to be most cautious of is a receipt printed out by computer. Ticketmaster tickets bought online can be printed out—but only the first printout is valid. Recently, people have been turned away from the door of a concert because they purchased tickets from a scalper who had simply hit “print” multiple times, and then sold the printouts via a Web site.



Not that you should let your guard down about traditionally-printed tickets, either. Just remember: if people can counterfeit money, they can certainly counterfeit a concert ticket. You're taking a gamble every time you buy a ticket from someone other than an authorized retailer.

By Amy Stice