Stop The Ticket Scammers!
Ticketbastard is always thinking up cool, new methods to stop scalpers from cramping their profit-minded ways. First, it was the introduction of on-site auctions in an attempt to undercut eBay, TicketsOnLineForCheapJustTrustUs.com, and the endlessly amusing Craigslist market. But their latest step is less transparent in its protection of the TM bottom line. Hey, you could say they're even trying to help!
Stop The Scammers is their new, anti ticket-fraud site, allowing hard-luck, fake-ticket purchasers to report their incidents, get info on consumer protection agencies, and get tips on how to avoid being defrauded ever again. ("See? Just buy 'em from us! Serves you right.")
We know you guys have some hilarious scammer stories. What's your best? Ever pay $300 for a Radiohead ticket? Ever pay $300 for a fake one? Or have YOU ever been a perpetrator of ticket fraud? (Bad reader!) We wanna hear those tall tales. Best story gets top-secret info on the best concert ticket generator around! Maybe it'll help you avoid spending $300 on an Arcade Fire-in-Montreal ticket.
Posted at 1:41 PM
Tags: Arcade Fire
Weird, I actually did pay $300 for a Radiohead ticket, and I think that's the only time I've ever bought from a scalper.
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In May of '05 I bought a Nine Inch Nails ticket for one of their sold out shows at the Hammmerstein Ballroom on ebay. I paid $315 for it.
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Weird, I actually did pay $300 for a Radiohead ticket, and I think that's the only time I've ever bought from a scalper.
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I once paid $300 for a Rolling Stones ticket, and that was to Ticketmaster. Naw, just kidding. Fuck those guys. But seriously, I once paid $20.00 for a Fugazi ticket, which is proportionally like paying $300 for a Radiohead ticket.
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Summer of '98, I hung out around the Hammerstein Ballroom one night, hoping to score a cheap ticket to see Kraftwerk. Never did, but as a consolation, I was treated to the drama of watching a group of young suburban trendsters buy some seriously expensive tickets off a scalper, walk about fifty feet away to the door and be told that they were fake, and then spend a half hour insisting the scalper give them their money back while he just laughed at them. They threatened to go to the police, and he just said, "Go ahead."
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Weird, I actually did pay $300 for a Radiohead ticket, and I think that's the only time I've ever bought from a scalper.
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I tried buying tickets to the Arcade Fire in Montreal when they went on sale this morning at 9am. Admission.com was flooded with traffic, but I got through to an operator on the 800 line at 9:10am. Tickets to all five dates were already sold out!
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I tried buying tickets to the Arcade Fire in Montreal when they went on sale this morning at 9am. Admission.com was flooded with traffic, but I got through to an operator on the 800 line at 9:10am. Tickets to all five dates were already sold out!
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When I was 17, way back in 1981, I went down to the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where the Stones were playing a rare show in a small venue (Tattoo You tour), intending to buy a ticket from a scalper and get in. These two guys came up to me and told me they had a ticket to sell, at a steep-but-acceptable price, but asked me to step into the lobby of the Georgian Terrace Hotel, across from The Fox (which is renovated and gorgeous now, but was way sketchy back then), to avoid the prying eyes of any cops. Once in the hotel, they then proceeded to mug me, allegedly at gunpoint (it could have been a finger in the guy's overcoat pocket, for all I know). Luckily, I had stashed most of the cash I was carrying in my shoe, and they only got what I had in my wallet. Still, it scared the piss out of me. I later learned that scalping tickets to concerts wasn't even illegal in Atlanta (only sporting events), so the whole "let's not let any cops see us do this transaction" ruse was, well, a ruse. Oh well -- it worked on a 17 year old kid who was desperate to see the Stones.
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not exactly from a scalper, but... a friend and i showed up ticketless to the final show of Radiohead's last US tour at the Greek theater in LA at around 1:00 in the afternoon. we put our names on a list to get a wristband in order to be able to lineup in case the band released more tickets before the show started. after waiting around all day, people finally lined up, but only ten or so people were able to score anything (we were 150 and 151). as the show started, we were walking around to the ticket scanner people trying to bribe them with (upto)100 bucks each (they make 7 bucks an hour). we finally got one of the girls to seriously think about it, and just as she looked to her door partner to get his approval, a girl (concert-goer) came up to us from the inside with an envelope, saying that she had 2 extras and we could have them for free if we wanted. she said they were shitty seats, so that's why she didn't want to deal with selling them before hand. we took them, they scanned, and we ran to our seats which really weren't all that bad at all. and to top it all off... it was my last night in town with my best friend before I moved to New York.
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not exactly from a scalper, but... a friend and i showed up ticketless to the final show of Radiohead's last US tour at the Greek theater in LA at around 1:00 in the afternoon. we put our names on a list to get a wristband in order to be able to lineup in case the band released more tickets before the show started. after waiting around all day, people finally lined up, but only ten or so people were able to score anything (we were 150 and 151). as the show started, we were walking around to the ticket scanner people trying to bribe them with (upto)100 bucks each (they make 7 bucks an hour). we finally got one of the girls to seriously think about it, and just as she looked to her door partner to get his approval, a girl (concert-goer) came up to us from the inside with an envelope, saying that she had 2 extras and we could have them for free if we wanted. she said they were shitty seats, so that's why she didn't want to deal with selling them before hand. we took them, they scanned, and we ran to our seats which really weren't all that bad at all. and to top it all off... it was my last night in town with my best friend before I moved to New York.
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not exactly from a scalper, but... a friend and i showed up ticketless to the final show of Radiohead's last US tour at the Greek theater in LA at around 1:00 in the afternoon. we put our names on a list to get a wristband in order to be able to lineup in case the band released more tickets before the show started. after waiting around all day, people finally lined up, but only ten or so people were able to score anything (we were 150 and 151). as the show started, we were walking around to the ticket scanner people trying to bribe them with (upto)100 bucks each (they make 7 bucks an hour). we finally got one of the girls to seriously think about it, and just as she looked to her door partner to get his approval, a girl (concert-goer) came up to us from the inside with an envelope, saying that she had 2 extras and we could have them for free if we wanted. she said they were shitty seats, so that's why she didn't want to deal with selling them before hand. we took them, they scanned, and we ran to our seats which really weren't all that bad at all. and to top it all off... it was my last night in town with my best friend before I moved to New York.
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In 2002 a friend ran the old "my tickets didn't arrive in the mail" scam on Ticketmaster so he got another 2 in the mail. He gave me one of the extras, not telling me its origins, just that he had an extra ticket. Unfortunately for me, this was January 2003 and TM had just started rolling out the scanners and mine wouldn't work. My friend felt terrible, and finally told me how he got the ticket - what a moron, of course they'd nullified the barcodes on the original tickets, but he didn't even know about the barcode scanners at all! Even worse, though, I'd watched him sell the other nullified ticket to a desperate stranger for a couple hundred dollars and I knew that person would assume she'd been deliberately scammed. Needless to say I still carry a grudge.
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a friend back in like '91 gave his life's only gay blow-job to the guitarist of the Soup Dragons at the hotel they were staying at and was told two spots would be on the guest list for him but when we showed up the venue was 21+. Does that count?
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a friend back in like '91 gave his life's only gay blow-job to the guitarist of the Soup Dragons at the hotel they were staying at and was told two spots would be on the guest list for him but when we showed up the venue was 21+. Does that count?
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beginning of last year, the shins played a show at the becks verandah in perth, australia (kind of a giant outdoor balcony our the back of the concert hall) overlooking the river that runs through our city.
Anyway, being broke i had missed out on tickets, but i went anyway in the hope i could buy one. Tickets were originally AU$35, but i took $70 - it was all i had. I tried everything, but no joy. As i was leaving, i gave directions to three friends who didn't know how to get to the verandah. They told me to enjoy the show, i told them I didn't have a ticket but they should enjoy it all the same. A few minutes later they caught me as i was nearly at my car, to tell me their fourth friend had just called, he was sick, and I could have his ticket for $25!
So things worked out pretty well for me!
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A couple of years ago, my friend really wanted to go to The Allman Brothers (he's a huge southern rock fan), but it was a 21+ show. We stood by the side door of the club listening to the music for about twenty minutes while an employe kept going in and out. After his fifth trip or so, he asked us why we hadn't snuck in yet and told us there wasn't any security by the back door at the time.
We went in to find a huge security guard just inside the actual concert area. He looked at us, shook his head and started to walk over. We stood there pretending that we knew what we were doing while he passed us and went out the back door. After giving us enough time to move into the concert space, he returned back to his post.
And even though the band was fairly old at that point, it was still a hell of a lot of fun.
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joe's story was so good I actually didn't mind reading it three times.
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I was somehow lucky enough to get two tickets to the Arcade Fire's show in Montreal on the Saturday night....Even though I got them at face-value, I'll still be spending $$$ to fly into and stay in Montreal for the weekend.
Ce la vie.
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this clip was taped at one of the Phish shows at Brooklyn's Keyspan Park in June of 2004.
Hilarious (and on topic)!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kfG96JcWes
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this clip was taped at one of the Phish shows at Brooklyn's Keyspan Park in June of 2004.
Hilarious (and on topic)!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kfG96JcWes
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I am going to the +44 concert tomorrow in Montreal with no ticket, and I need one.
Scalpers?, specific good ones?
HA. PLEASE help me.
I really want to see +44.
And I need a good, cheap, and affordable scalper!
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