One step closer to 1984. :(
Yes because the security of barcodes and screenshotted tickets were such a huge problem before. Paying customers used to constantly miss out on events because someone else had already gotten in with their ticket. /s
Yes because the security of barcodes and screenshotted tickets were such a huge problem before.
I think what you just described is actually a problem. Friends of my parents were visiting somewhere, bought tickets to a show from a reseller, met up with the seller (normal looking guy, no red flags, gave some plausible story why he was selling) and paid cash for printed out tickets with barcodes. Printouts looked legit, dates on the printouts were correct, etc. Went to the doors, tried to scan their tickets, got told that unfortunately they’d just been scammed. The impression they get from the box office worker is that this sort of bad news is something they’ve had to deliver frequently. Anecdotal, but I doubt those friends of my parents were the only ones to get scammed in this way. TicketMaster still sucks as an organization but the extra security of rotating barcodes does serve a legitimate security purpose, just like the rotating security codes generated by an authenticator app.
Airlines have recently been having problems with stowaways using screenshots of boarding pass barcodes or QR codes too. Such stowaways should get caught before departure by passenger headcounts or boarding ID checks, but clearly there are gaps or breakdowns in these procedures because some of these stowaways are getting caught at the destination. Others may have successfully flown for free. If it keeps happening I bet we’ll see rotating barcodes come to mobile boarding passes too, if that hasn’t already happened.
I mean, that’s sorta on them for buying from a scalper-at-best
(Still, fuck Ticketmaster)
Oh yes, I don’t mean to absolve them of any blame. They treated it as an expensive lesson, which is probably the best way for them to process it.
Also while TicketMaster is going to sell this as being an “enhanced security” thing, it’s pretty obvious that increased security is only a side benefit for them. Their angle in this is getting more control over the tickets they sell. As long as there are many people who want to go than can physically fit in a venue, there will be a reselling market for event tickets. TicketMaster wants to take a cut of these downstream transactions.
While the security of rotating barcodes does hinder outright scams, mobile wallets normally allow wallet users to transfer items like tickets to another user if the ticket issuer allows it. TicketMaster does not allow this for their tickets, of course, because it could allow someone to resell tickets while cutting TicketMaster out of the transaction. Currently TM allows transfers using their app, but I’m sure they monitor usage of the feature and clamp down on anyone transferring many tickets. In other words if you try to resell in bulk without using TicketMaster’s own platform (where they get to take a cut), they drop the hammer on you.
Is it not where you are? Here it’s very questionable to buy online tickets as the person could sell them multiple times.
If it’s coming from Ticketmaster I get it, but don’t they resell tickets themselves as well?
Over here we use bar codes and QR codes exclusively and they deliver them through whatever method you want — PDF or image in email, text message, download PDF, you can even take a screenshot of the web page after you’re done paying if you want.
Which I’ve done many times (the screenshot thing) esp for things like movie tickets where I don’t bother with creating an account because I don’t go that often. I look up the movie or event, pick the seats, pay, take a screenshot of the QR code, send it to whoever’s going on Whatsapp, done.
I’m not sure I understand what the problem is. The venue already got their money. Either someone will show up to redeem the seat or they won’t, they don’t care either way. And it’s trivial to make sure the codes can’t be faked and that only the first scanned code gets in.
The fact there’s no way to check you’re not getting scammed has actually led to an almost total disappearance of scalping. The only resales happen only through friends or friend of a friend sort of thing.
Every once in a while there’s some organizer who thinks they’re smart and issue paper tickets and those are pretty much the only times you see tickets scalped online or outside the venue the night of the concert.
Season ticket holders resell their tickets all the time for stuff like hockey games they can’t make it too. As you said it’s paper, there isn’t anything stopping them from copying and selling it or emailing multiple people.
This is why reselling places exist, it creates a history for the seller so you know you aren’t getting scammed.
There is still valid reasons to resell tickets, most are non-returnable, so if the person can’t go anymore, why shouldn’t they try and recoup the cost? Sure “scalping” is gone, but not reselling tickets.
Scalping is usually used to refer to the specific act of reselling for profit, what definition are you using here?
I’m using scalping with the obvious definition of gouging profit.
I’m saying scalping is enabled by making tickets hard to counterfeit. You can’t criminalize the act of reselling itself but you can deter it by making it inherently untrustworthy. Reselling should be possible, but it needs to stop short of getting out of hand.
When you create a trustworthy ticket resell market you’re basically creating a hotbed of scalping. If people can reliably find clients for ever-increasing ticket prices, then ticket prices will keep going up. That’s exactly what Ticket Nation & friends have done, and they profit by taking a fat percentage.
Every sporting event I’ve been to in the past few years is exclusively digital tickets. Even the local amateur women’s soccer team.
They do. In fact they’ve been caught “reselling” tickets at scalper prices without them ever having been sold a first time.
The entire scalping/resale market arguably shouldn’t exist, instead tickets should be refundable within reason, at which point the organiser can issue and sell new tickets.
I’ve got season tickets and I can’t use them, or I bought concert tickets and have a surgery now.
There’s valid reasons to resell tickets, obviously scalping is different though, that’s doing it for profit. Unless I’m mistaken some places have laws for reselling tickets for more than the price in the ticket, so you can’t even scalp, you can only resell regardless.
How close up to door time should you be able to return it so they have a chance to resell it? 24-48 hours would be fine I think, but what if you’re out of that time frame? Thats why reselling exists.
I lived in a small town with a small theatre.
If you couldn’t make a show, you called it in and they’d try to resell your ticket; if they succeed, you we’re refunded. So there was no “due date/time” but the sooner you asked them to resell, the better your odds.
The entire scalping/resale market arguably shouldn’t exist, instead tickets should be refundable within reason, at which point the organiser can issue and sell new tickets.
I had to think about this for a minute, but this is exactly the way to handle it. Don’t allow direct transfers at all. You don’t get to pick who gets your tickets (and therefore scalping can’t exist.). But you still can refund your tickets (maybe with a SMALL fee) up to a couple hours before the event. I hope we don’t need legislation to say they have to be sold for the same price they were originally offered for. We don’t want an incentive for Ticketmaster to steal people’s tickets when a venue sells out.
You can add it to your own mobile wallet as well.
The Amazon equivalent for my country does this for their site on mobile by removing filters and making it so anything related to your account just tells you to use the app.
However If you toggle desktop mode in your browser everything works perfectly fine. It’s almost as if they just want to data mine you. Surely no company would have that as a motive!
Sadly, I tried desktop mode in Firefox and still got the pop-up
You also can’t do shit with their service, app and web, if you’re on a VPN. It just refuses. Even – and this may be illegal – unsubscribing from their emails.
This is simply false. They’re an awful company, but you can just use your browser.
Trying to view them through your browser will bring you to this pop-up. And it says you can’t use screen shots or print outs.
The only other option is to use a mobile wallet, but that prevents me from sending my friends their tickets, since I purchased them all together.
The reason you can’t use screenshots or printouts is because they’re now using rotating barcodes. Much like the rotating codes in an authenticator app, the number values behind the barcode are changing on some regular cadence. Only the most recent barcode value is considered valid.
The only other option is to use a mobile wallet, but that prevents me from sending my friends their tickets, since I purchased them all together.
Some ticket sellers allow you to transfer tickets from one wallet to another wallet, but of course TicketMaster isn’t one of them because they’re fucking TicketMaster. What TicketMaster does allow is transfers from one TicketMaster account to another. Of course then everyone needs to have a TicketMaster account, needs to have the app, etc. It’s either that or leave all the tickets in your app or wallet and go in together. If you tell the door person “I have the tickets for these X people,” they’ll be able to handle that.
Jesus, what a bunch of needless “security”. They’re tickets to a concert, ffs. This is all for personal data mining.
Jesus, what a bunch of needless “security”
I disagree with this part. Ticket theft is an actual issue, there are lots of ways to get a copy of someone else’s barcode and either use it before they do or (more likely) sell it to someone else online. TicketMaster’s marketing is talking up the increased security to distract from their true purpose, which is of course to find more ways to take more money from fans. Of course it’s debatable whether the increased security is worth the decreased convenience for ticketholders. That is the inevitable tension when it comes to security, where any increase in security always incurs at least some cost in terms of convenience.
This is all for personal data mining.
TicketMaster might be selling user data, but I don’t think that’s their main aim. They want control of the resale market so they can take a cut when tickets are resold. Note how they don’t allow direct transfers between two mobile wallets, they only allow transfers using their app. That’s so they can monitor transfers. If they see someone transferring dozens or hundreds of tickets to many other TicketMaster users then that person is likely reselling and they can clamp down on their account. TicketMaster’s true intent is to force all resales onto their ticket marketplace, because that’s where they get to take a cut of resales.
I just used this service on Saturday and I didn’t get this pop up.
When I have a concert I usually install the app, load the ticket into my mobile wallet, and delete the app
Hell I have the app on my phone, but yesterday, I received a ticket for an event, accepted it, and downloaded it to my phone without using that app at all.
I think OP is misunderstanding what is happening. The code changes every so often, probably to prevent people from passing around a screen shot and trying to get in that way. You can get the ticket without the app.
Good, it’s about time!
“give us your personal information so we can sell it quickly before we might lose money”
I, for one, am looking forward to the $.0036 Check in the mail. While some lawyer pockets $97 Billion. Any day now…
Antirust is very different than Class Action (were you’d get a 36cent check). This would be the FTC filing charges, which has much more power.
I’m sure it’ll be a voucher just like the last lawsuit against a ticketing company. I’d like to say it was LiveNation but I honestly can’t remember. I remember looking at the concerts I could go to with the voucher and they were all shit.
But that was the point, wasn’t it. Give up potential profit that they were in fact never going to get in the first place.
Oh like how in Canada the Lawblaws corporation and other grocers were caught colluding over bread prices for nearly 20 years, and their punishment? Everyone who got into the class action (you had to sign up) ya got a whopping $25 to use at their store…
Worst part to me is that the majority of people either never used the entirety of the $25 credit, saving Loblaw’s money. Or, they spent more than $25 while shopping and injected more money into the business.
The percentage of people who went through the effort of spending exactly $25 is probably extremely low.
I found out after the fact and got zilch…
Haven’t bought anything on Ticketmaster or their owned companies in years. And I generally go to 2 to 5 live shows a month.
This and their policy towards VPNs means I won’t support them.
where do you buy your tickets?
Directly from many venues. And some ticket sellers that aren’t owned by them. Some smaller venues use them, and some artsier places.
But for the mega concerts, I just don’t go where Ticketmaster holds the venue contract. I fly and see who I want elsewhere.
I was given a free ticket to an event last night. I did it all using their web page. Their page was very slow and when I finally got to the point where it was supposed to show the ticket, it kept blanking the page right when the bar code would load. Luckily the gentleman at the booth could see it was legitimate and that there was a technical issue, so he printed it out for me.
That monopoly must go.
Well if they want people’s data from having their app they should give heavily discounted tickets 👁️👁️👁️🤣🤣🤣🤔🤔🤔🫡🫡🫡🙄🙄🙄
Oooh, nah, let’s just do both!
You’re talking about the same company that charges a “convenience” fee for ordering online. Then if you decide to go to buy them in person you charge a “facilities” fee.
how is this legal?
Because we live in corporate ruled kleptocracies masquerading as democracies.
Democracy can never exist in a two party system.
It makes me so mad that there are so many artists I cannot see because they only offer tickets through this scam. Billy Joel has been a lifelong bucket list artist, and I can’t go see his tour because of this bullshit.
Oh well, I’ll continue going to concerts using tickets sold by the venue.
I just got some tickets from ticket master, and they didn’t have this, but AXS does force you to install the app no matter what.
I think it tells you when you go to buy them, in the delivery method.
I found this out after getting past security but before entering the venue. I had shit cell service and was just finding out I had to download, create an account for, and sign into their app, I was outside for maybe 10 minutes. Funny how they dont make you do any of this to buy the ticket, only after I paid money for it. AXS can suck my dick.
I think this has been the case for a while
Just do Will Call. This is to mitigate scalping, everyone should be in favor.
Will call usually has 2 people at the window and 200 people in line. Lol. You think Ticketmaster wants you using willcall?
And scalping still exists, only it’s Ticketmaster doing it now.
There’s a downside to everything but you just gotya put on your big boy undies and checks notes wait in a line.
