Festival Ticket Scam

AliBow

Generally I don't have a problem with ebay. I use it loads for buying and selling and have only ever had one problem before, and that was as a seller not a buyer with someone who brought an item from me then never showed up to collect it then left me negitive feedback when I refunded his money and relisted it (hence what I said about negitive feedback not always being the recievers fault). I think ebays policy for helping with event tickets is stupid tho cos you often have to buy them months in advance to get a decent price (I paid £178 for two tickets in April and last week they were going for £165 each). I have much more of a problem with the ****hole who I brought them from than ebay.

I came on here for advice on how to solve my problem and to compare notes with people who are in the same situation not to slag off ebay and get judged for my decisions.

I was actually thinking how nice and helpful everyone was on here and how refreshing it was to find a board without all the petty bickering they usually attract, until I got called a fool for getting screwed over!

steviebabes

Hey, no one is calling you a fool, it's just that ebay or paypal can't do anything about this one. It's sellers like this that get ebay a bad name but I think they are doing something about it now. It's like all things in life sometimes you learn an expensive lesson.

frivolous_fay

OP, it's easy to be wise after the event and you don't deserve people implying you're a fool. Dave loves to harp on about ebay / paypal bias but tbh I see this place as damage limitation. I don't think it helps to tell you what you should / shouldn't have done - not everyone knows all the rules that apply to something they're bidding on.

eira

Quite-and you notice that the victims of these scams are at the younger end of the consumer market

---

. Since my daughters hit 18 all sorts of things have come out of the woodwork. A number of scams seem aimed at younger consumers.
We all make mistakes but we don't need mocking for them. My daughter is 19 and worked a long time to save money for that ticket-ok so she made a mistake but she is being punished for it and the scammer is getting away fully protected!! This is an issue that E bay needs to address. Why is something not fitting a description lumped in with failure to provide what gets paid for ? Why is there no resolution/communication system after 60 days ? And as for seller ratings -my daughter's seller was a stellar 99% +-and he was supposed to be a tribute to E bay principles !!!!!!!

What I now find alarming is the heavy message that if you trade on E bay you're swimming with sharks and the blood in the water is yours. This attitude even more than the scam is what is truly alarming.This doesn't sound remotely like the ethos that E bay purports to.

blue_monkey_2

I hate the way eBay allows people to advertise things like this - surely a drop down box allowing you to enter the date of the gig should be a necessity these days, or a tick box asking if the tickets are in hand so that the buyer knows. No, not everyone is experienced with eBay and not everyone is aware of people scamming and being deceptive - some of the things they do open my eyes and I like to think I have been 'well seasoned' along thee way!!

Anyhow, back to the problem with the tickets. For the lady who sent the cheque, send a letter via Special Delivery stating if your money is not refunded within 14 days you will be taking the matter to the police and the small claims court. in the meantime ask the back for a copy of the cheque - front and back - and you can add the cost of getting this to your claim. Tell the bank what has happened and you might even find them helpful. I am not sure as I have never had to do anything like this.

To the person who bought the items via Paypal. When you won you was sent an email - did you keep this, it should have the sellers address on there - even if you opted to pay via Paypal. You could google this and find out if you have some match - if you do then do the same thing as above - letter by Special Delivery and Small Claims court.

There should also be some way of reporting the seller for items not received and money not refunded - regaless whether it is more than 60 days so that the seller can be investigated. It is typical of eBay not to bother but if they are harvesting these scammers (which they are) they should also be able to stop some one else getting scammed by the same trader by cancelling accounts but mainly by not allowing tickets to be sold that are not in hand. Maybe the best way is for people to stop buying them. If the touts aren't buying them then maybe there would be more genuine tickets left at normal prices for everyone to buy when they are released!!

I think everyone has been stung on eBay one way or another these days - it is not about being an idiot or whatever name has been cvalled, it is about these people selling things to deliberatly deceive. tonight I saw a car listed - took a look and it is for the Jack only. Unless they stop people like this it will never end. I guess they are more concerned about people keyword spamming. I reported someone twice and the listing still stands. Makes you wonder I guess!!

AliBow

I've got the email from paypal but it only has the sellers name, email and username on there. Suspiciosly the sellers name on paypal is different from the name ebay have given me when I requested contact details.

My paypal is backed up by my debit card so I'm going to my bank in the week to see if it's too late to try and do a chargeback.

But you know what I've been using ebay since I was seventeen and this is the first time in those six years that I've been caught out so I guess it had to happen eventually lol. Sorry if I came across a bit short earlier, I was just mad at the whole situation.

eira

Some advice please. Police rang daughter's rogue ticket seller-he was at the festival as I said. Police said he'd told them that he had sent the tickets and it was up to my daughter to chase it up with Royal Mail. 1)She hasn't been given a tracking reference-despite asking 2) is it her responsibility anyway. The bloke said he'd ring her back-but of course he hasn't. She's now gone to do a holiday job in Cyprus and left me to ring him tomorrow.
She paid by credit card via Paypal. Paypal is 'out of time' and the credit card company says it's an E bay issue.Not my understanding at all- I reckon Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act renders them jointly and severally liable .

Unfortunately said daughter has also fallen foul of a vile travel agency-Southall Travel-who have also ripped her off. As stated in earlier posts -sharks lying in wait for young consumers. Southall Travel even tried threatening me - their staff make debt collection agency staff look like Piglet !

frivolous_fay

Persist with the credit card - which one is it?

soolin

Just for clarification..ebay do try and do their best with ticket sellers but buyers do need to know the rules as well. The rules, which are there to be read say that sellers can only sell items that they can deliver within 30 days of the auction end. That 30 day rules allows a buyer who has paid by paypal to put in a chargeback before the time runs out on day 45...

Buying tickets from anywhere, small ads, ebay, other auction sites is a problem if you buy tickets that you know you can't get for several months as you run out of any protection.

Experienced buyers know these rules which is why it is so unfortunate that the usual people caught by these scams are the young who are maybe more trusting. For example to my knowledge my son (who is technically now an adult) has never done any of the safe buying tutorials on ebay, nor does he bother with reading any of the notes, terms and conditions on either ebay or paypal. Like many of his friends he sees tickets for a gig and his 'need' for those tickets take over any smidgen of self protection he may have.

It is probably unfair if I term all the sellers in this thread as 'scammers' but basically the only way we can stop these scammers/sellers is to work within the rules ourselves and not give them any wriggle room. If buying tickets for a gig in advance don't buy if the seller breaches ebay rules by not having confirmed delivery within 30 days...a seller breaking ebay rules is likely to be suspended anyway which just makes getting money back even more complicated. This applies not only on ebay but to any selling venue. Always check what protection you have before you commit to buy, if the protection is time limited then watch those limits.

As for credit cards yes they are liable in cases of non delivery, but some cards are more helpful than others, so persevere.

bluebell13

Alibow, please dont be put off coming on here to ask for advice. Most people will be helpful. Dave Brooker is very anti-Ebay, and if you read some of his other posts you will realise why.

It is up to you which advice you choose to take and which to ignore.