Ticket shenanigans? -- Same tickets for sale at both Ace and Stubhub

[QuantumMechanic]

I happened to be looking at tickets for the hell of it (not really planning to go) and I noticed the exact same tickets were listed on both Ace and Stubhub (Sec 109, Row 37, Seats 11-17, if you're interested.)

So how the heck does that work? How does (say) Stubhub know to pull the tickets down if Ace sells them? Or is that on the person who listed the tickets? But then what happens if he doesn't and someone then buys them from Stubhub? Stubhub would/should issue a refund, I'd imagine, but that still screws you over if you were counting on going.

And both list them as "instant download". So that would seem to mean both have the barcode or whatever is needed to generate a ticket that can be home-printed.

I'm probably being overly paranoid but it does all seem somewhat fishy.

 

[Joker]

heh...nah...it's the NFL, pure as the driven snow. Herr Godell has issued orders that all ticket outlets provide proper access to the formerly illegal practice of scalping. Best bet is try to find a season ticket holder on your own and strike a deal...otherwise, don't even try to cry "rape!"...they already hear you and do not give a crap

 

[mgcolby]

Its my understanding...obviously for what little that is worth...that for the most part there are only a few ticket resellers that hold the tickets. The majority of ticket resellers pull from a few central databases and get a small cut. Its also not unlikely that the big boys share tickets as well to increase the sale odds, by trading/offering each others tickets and opening bigger markets etc...

 

[supafly]

It's actually not uncommon to list tix that you're selling on multiple sites, especially as the game gets closer and you're hoping not to get stuck with the tickets. You get an immediate notification/email when your tix have been bought, and then you'd simply go to the other site and remove your listing.

As you suggest, there is a gamble involved if say, someone buys them in the middle of the night and then someone else attempts to buy them from the other site. Of course, the odds of the happening are fairly low, but if it does happen the seller is on the hook and there are extra fees that need to be paid to the buyer for wasting their time.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Interesting! But how do you list on multiple sites such that all the sites let the buyer instantly download the ticket PDF? I thought season ticket holders got hard tickets. Or do they have the option to somehow convert them to soft tickets?

 

[supafly]

Interesting! But how do you list on multiple sites such that all the sites let the buyer instantly download the ticket PDF? I thought season ticket holders got hard tickets. Or do they have the option to somehow convert them to soft tickets?

I'm not sure if there is an option for "converting" or not, but many of the outlets offer a secondary marketplace where they guarantee your tickets, so they offer the instant download option.

For example, I went to the Pittsburgh game last year since it is close to me, and I had originally been forced to buy tix from Ticketmaster when they initially put single game tix on sale way back in the summer. Of course, the seats are lousy since there are so few of them, so I was able to upgrade to better seats via another avenue. I had hard copies of my tix from TM in hand, but when I listed them on their secondary market (available for the majority of events), they had an instant download option, so I never even needed to meet up with the buyer. They sent me an email telling me to rip up or discard my hard copy tickets and they either sent me a check or simply deposited the funds back onto the credit card that I had originally used (can't remember).

In theory, I suppose that I could've ripped someone off by selling my hard copy tix that were no longer valid, but they'd likely have just tracked me down in their computer as being the original buyer, where I then would've been charged in criminal court.

 

[DarrylS]

Integrity (def)... an NFL standard that only applies to the NE Patriots. The rest of the league and the front office are free to do anything they so desire to increase the bottom line. See "Draft Kings"...

 

[PatsSox363804]

The ticket sales I bought last week were listed on StubHub, ticket exchange, tickpick, vivid seats, etc all at the same time. I got them from tick pick because they were somehow cheaper and once I bought them they came off the other sites.

 

[jmt57]

To amplify a portion of Supafly's comment two posts above, I have this analogy.

I worked for years for a wholesale distributor in the IT industry. Call it being a middleman if that helps paint the picture. Our customers sold products and services to the end user. We purchased and stocked products from the manufacturer.

Our customers, the resellers, were analogous to the ticket agencies. Those resellers set up their websites to reflect availability of all products from us, as well as the other distributors they purchased products from.

Normally that is not an issue, but what happens when two end users attempt to buy my last remaining Cisco router, or Viewsonic monitor, etc, from two different resellers? The first order I receive gets the product, the second one gets an error message back in return.

This typically resulted in an angry phone call from the end user to the reseller, followed by an angry phone call from the reseller to me. It's just one of those things that occasionally happens and there is no getting around it.


tl;dr: I would hesitate to label this practice as shenanigans. It's just a case of first come, first served. I would think (hope) that with the ticket agencies their corresponding purchase of tickets is done electronically as soon as they receive an order. That way the end user would quickly know if he missed out on the tickets. The delay in comparison to a ticket broker having the tickets on hand, and two end users purchasing simultaneously should be minimal.

 

[BTTA]

I would think (hope) that with the ticket agencies their corresponding purchase of tickets is done electronically as soon as they receive an order. That way the end user would quickly know if he missed out on the tickets. The delay in comparison to a ticket broker having the tickets on hand, and two end users purchasing simultaneously should be minimal.

That's the critical factor in this. If the system depends on an individual ticket seller to go back into each of the online sites to delete the tickets, then it is broken.

 

[PatsDeb]

Interesting! But how do you list on multiple sites such that all the sites let the buyer instantly download the ticket PDF? I thought season ticket holders got hard tickets. Or do they have the option to somehow convert them to soft tickets?

First of all, I am not sure how you got a dislike on this, but whatever. I think there is only a small pool of tix that all of the resellers pull from. It's the same with concert tickets. You see the same tickets posted on multiple sites. Also, I believe there is a way for season ticket holders to convert their tickets (which at least in my case, are hard tickets) to paper/PDF tickets with bar codes. I have never tried it though.

 

[mosslost]

I happened to be looking at tickets for the hell of it (not really planning to go) and I noticed the exact same tickets were listed on both Ace and Stubhub (Sec 109, Row 37, Seats 11-17, if you're interested.)

So how the heck does that work? How does (say) Stubhub know to pull the tickets down if Ace sells them? Or is that on the person who listed the tickets? But then what happens if he doesn't and someone then buys them from Stubhub? Stubhub would/should issue a refund, I'd imagine, but that still screws you over if you were counting on going.

And both list them as "instant download". So that would seem to mean both have the barcode or whatever is needed to generate a ticket that can be home-printed.

I'm probably being overly paranoid but it does all seem somewhat fishy.

I would say lots of tickets going up for sale this week

 

[PatsFan98117]

I see what you're doing here @QuantumMechanic. No shenanigans necessary. They're obviously Schrodinger's Tickets.

 

[cupofjoe1962]

The Patriots scalp tickets to out of town buyers.

The seats next to my old seats use to have a out of town fan's week after week. I don't have a problem with a person rooting for their team, so I usually strike up a conversation at some point.

They all reported that they got the tickets from different ticket agencies & the price was sometimes two or three times face value.

Playoffs rolled around & the same guys were there for the divisional & AFC championship game. I asked them how much they paid for the tickets and they told me they got them for free from the Patriots because they were vendors. They also told me Kraft gives all the vendors Super Bowl tickets.

 

[patstrips65]

My brother in law owns a ticket agency. They belong to a national association. When they list their tickets it goes on every site. If you buy from him the price can be the lowest. If you buy though another site it isn't.

Different rant- I have bought lots of tickets through the past 15 years or so. Used to be able to stalk ticketmaster the week of game and tix would show up. Turn backs from visiting teams and such. Further team had to travel there were more tix. Certain sections- 323,324,201 and then lower ring of upper deck. Closer to game lowers showed up. Few years back they were listing these on ticket exchange. Still happens on night games and crappy weather games. Now, those tix go elsewhere. I assume Pat's are selling them elsewhere for bigger profit.
Waiting list has now become useless. Used to be easy to get all playoff games. Not anymore.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I happened to be looking at tickets for the hell of it (not really planning to go) and I noticed the exact same tickets were listed on both Ace and Stubhub (Sec 109, Row 37, Seats 11-17, if you're interested.)

So how the heck does that work? How does (say) Stubhub know to pull the tickets down if Ace sells them? Or is that on the person who listed the tickets? But then what happens if he doesn't and someone then buys them from Stubhub? Stubhub would/should issue a refund, I'd imagine, but that still screws you over if you were counting on going.

And both list them as "instant download". So that would seem to mean both have the barcode or whatever is needed to generate a ticket that can be home-printed.

I'm probably being overly paranoid but it does all seem somewhat fishy.

StubHub is a reseller, so they're probably either pulling that ticket's availability directly from Ace (which I'm not familiar with) or if Ace is also a reseller then Ace and StubHub are probably pulling from the same source. There's no inherent issue with this, it's pretty common for the same ticket to be listed on all sorts of sites (for example, SeatGeek and StubHub usually have near-identical inventory). But yeah, once the ticket is purchased on one site it will be pulled from the others.

At least that's how it's supposed to and typically does work. I'm sure there are scammy exceptions, but the only way to avoid that is to avoid marketplaces and resellers altogether and buy directly from the venue. I wouldn't worry too much about that. StubHub in particular is a large and reputable vendor. I've heard a few nightmare stories online, but personally I've only had good experiences with both StubHub and SeatGeek.