Any way to verify (Hamilton) tix bought from StubHub?- Page 2

[haterobics]

Posted: 5/10/16 at 3:57pm

PThespian said: "It has nothing to do with who scans in first. The person with the legit ticket gets in no matter when the person with the fake ticket scans in. 

It also doesn't matter who scans in first if two people with fake tickets show up. Neither one is getting in. 

Bottom line: There's only one legit ticket per seat per show. That doesn't change no matter how often it gets bought and resold. 

If you have it enjoy the show. If not make sure you dress appropriately for the weather outside."

If the issue is fake versus legit, you are correct. But, if I have a legit e-ticket, and I sell that PDF 20 times... and all 20 people are in line, the first scan gets in, and the other 19 people will not. All of those are legit, but only the first scan counts.

[Hellob]

Posted: 5/10/16 at 4:02pm

haterobics said: "The original buyer isn't always going to help there, though. If any non-scalper lists Hamilton tickets for cheaper than typical resale value, another scalper will buy them and relist them for more money. So, you are not necessarily buying them from the original buyer. 

If you're concerned, though, I would definitely be at the front of the line when the doors opened. If your ticket was sold more than once, the people who get those bar codes scanned first are the ones getting in...

 

"

Valid point, you'd have to take an educated guess of what the op price before fees minus the seller 10% fee and see if it seems likely to be a new sale. 

[Hack n Tuck Inc.]

Posted: 5/10/16 at 4:41pm

"The ticket should have the original buyer's name. Do some recon, find their fb or whatever, you should be able to get an idea of what's up."

Actually the PDF from StubHub does not have the name of the original purchaser.  I believe this is intentional on the part of StubHub, because their fine print talks about acting as a middle man so that the actual buyer and seller are never in contact and know nothing about each other.  Obviously if they left the original purchaser's name on the ticket image, that goal would be defeated.

 

Incidentally, I have also theorized that whatever process they use to remove the original purchaser's name from the ticket also causes the other irregularities that I and others have noted.  I'll report back after June 5 with my evidence for or against this this theory . . . .

Updated On: 5/10/16 at 04:41 PM

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 5/10/16 at 5:31pm

With a Ticketmaster resale it is impossible to resell a legit ticket more than once. Your barcode is invalidated once the sale goes through. 

I am not sure about Stub Hub. I've never used it. So you may be correct.

If you put it on multiple websites, its easy. 
 

[dshnookie]

Posted: 5/10/16 at 6:00pm

I've purchased tickets on stubhub before with original purchaser name listed. A no name ticket just means the person covered their name and rescanned the PDF into their computer. A practice I've done myself selling extra concert tickets, so don't let that deter you.

[Hack n Tuck Inc.]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 11:50am

Cool, thanks for the clarification.  I've stopped worrying about it at this point -- we'll go in a few weeks and either get in, or not.  Either way, the sun comes up and the world still spins.

[jdra]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 12:00pm

I just wanted to relay my positive experience with StubHub customer service over Hamilton tickets. I bought instant download tickets for my sons pretty close to showtime but they did not instant download. It turned out that because my account was brand new, instant download would not work for some reason. The issue was straightened out but my boys got into the show 15 minutes late because of it. Being late was not the worst thing in the world since it was their second time seeing it but still not good for the $$ I paid. I complained to StubHub and they refunded $175. I appreciated the gesture a lot.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 12:11pm

LJD123 said: "Seems ridiculous that some seats are able to be resold via TM and some are not???  Has anyone else had this problem or heard of the same elsewhere? It seems strange, but my TM order does not have the resell button and I have called and spoke to 3 different people there and been told the same by all 3.  For me I guess StubHub may be the only resale option? "

This happened to me when I accidentally purchased tickets to see Adele's upcoming tour on two different dates after a series of missteps. No reselling is allowed for either one, and for both I have to pick my tickets up at the venue the day of the show. Only one was on ticketmaster (the other was via her presale) but the name can't be changed, it can't be transferred or resold and for the other, the credit or debit card used to purchase the ticket must be used to get the ticket. My boyfriend gets public anxiety when I'm not there with him so unfortunately it looks like I'll have to see Adele twice.

[haterobics]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 12:16pm

gypsy101 said: "No reselling is allowed for either one, and for both I have to pick my tickets up at the venue the day of the show. Only one was on ticketmaster (the other was via her presale) but the name can't be changed, it can't be transferred or resold and for the other, the credit or debit card used to purchase the ticket must be used to get the ticket. My boyfriend gets public anxiety when I'm not there with him so unfortunately it looks like I'll have to see Adele twice."

That is the flip side of not allowing unrestricted scalping, though. No sane middle ground.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 12:26pm

haterobics said: "That is the flip side of not allowing unrestricted scalping, though. No sane middle ground."

The thing is, when I was still trying to think of ways to sell them (I bought them in December and gave up about 2 weeks later) I went on stubhub and saw many tickets for my dates. I think maybe it has to do with which seats I purchased, both are on the floor. Hell if I knew I was buying twice what I wanted to spend just for myself I would have just gotten a front row seat for one show. c'est la vie I guess. worse things happen to people than seeing Adele in concert two days in a row #firstworldproblems

[ChiTheaterFan]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 12:31pm

PThespian said: "BroadwayNYC2 said: "With a Ticketmaster resale it is impossible to resell a legit ticket more than once. Your barcode is invalidated once the sale goes through. 

I am not sure about Stub Hub. I've never used it. So you may be correct.

If you put it on multiple websites, its easy. 
 

 

I'm totally not arguing but am curious. 

Say I have a ticket that I list on three websites. Once someone buys it they want me to transfer it to them electronically. 

I go into my TM account and transfer the ticket. This is the original ticket and that buyer now has it. 

Someone else buys it on a second website I listed it on. I can't transfer it to them electronically because the ticket is no longer in my TM account. Those people have nothing to present to even try to get in. 

Right?

 

 

 

"
The third party sites don't use ticketmaster to transfer the tickets, however. So you don't transfer them by logging into your ticketmaster account. 


That's the problem. All stub hub does is reprint the tickets with the original barcode you entered in when the tickets sell. And you type in that barcode when you list the tickets. So someone could put them on stub hub, also put them on ticketmaster resale, and sell them on both sites. Regardless of what order they sell in, the stubhub tickets will be printed by the buyer  with the original barcode that is no longer valid because ticket master has issued a new barcode. I'm assuming other sites work the same way. 

 

The same is true with paper tickets-you could print them before selling them on ticketmaster resale. The buyer would have a printed ticket and wouldn't know until they showed up that it was invalidated. 

 

Stubhub requires sellers to put in a credit card for the fan protect guarantee (which gives the buyer their money back and charges the seller in the event of fraud), and as a result the vast majority of these sales are fine. The scalpers who are making their living on reselling tickets aren't doing it this way. But some people must be using stolen credit cards or otherwise gaming that system. 

Updated On: 5/11/16 at 12:31 PM

[haterobics]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 1:18pm

PThespian said: "Say I have a ticket that I list on three websites. Once someone buys it they want me to transfer it to them electronically. 

I go into my TM account and transfer the ticket. This is the original ticket and that buyer now has it. 

Someone else buys it on a second website I listed it on. I can't transfer it to them electronically because the ticket is no longer in my TM account. Those people have nothing to present to even try to get in. 

Right?"

Not quite.

Typically, when you sell on StubHub and everywhere other than Ticketmaster, you are going to upload a PDF of your tickets to your buyer. On Ticketmaster, you would do nothing, since they would handle the sale and cancel your ticket entirely and reissue a new ticket (with their name, new barcodes, etc.) to the new buyer.

But there is nothing preventing you from saving off a PDF of your Ticketmaster ticket to your local system, and then being able to sell it elsewhere/multiple times, or getting in line first and having several people behind you waiting with tickets for your same seats that won't scan.

The only nuance is that if you sell the PDF of your ticket elsewhere, they are all valid tickets, but only the first person to get it scanned would get to enter the show. Whereas, if you sold it on Ticketmaster, AND sold PDFs of that original ticket elsewhere, only the person who bought the resale ticket on Ticketmaster would get in, since that new bar code was issued for that seat, and canceling out the bar code on that PDF you made before selling it.

[LJD123]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 2:44pm

Thanks for letting us know.  It seems strange to me with all the discussion on these boards about Hamilton seats, tickets and performances that nobody else has complained of the same situation.  Not being able to list tickets for resale on Ticketmaster brings the legitimacy of them into question, when indeed they are great seats to a great show purchased through Ticketmaster.  

[Hack n Tuck Inc.]

Posted: 5/11/16 at 3:31pm

LJD123 said: "Thanks for letting us know.  It seems strange to me with all the discussion on these boards about Hamilton seats, tickets and performances that nobody else has complained of the same situation.  Not being able to list tickets for resale on Ticketmaster brings the legitimacy of them into question, when indeed they are great seats to a great show purchased through Ticketmaster. "

 

 

I agree.  For all the anecdotal warnings, there seems to be very little hard factual reporting out there (or in here) about fraudulent tickets, so maybe it's not as huge a concern as it has been made out to be.  Here's hoping.

 

And just to reiterate on the hypothetical discussion of how to sell fake tickets on SH or elsewhere, my main concern has always been the scenario described by haterobics -- that the tickets I bought on SH are duplicates of legitimate tickets and the holder of the original tickets intends to use them.  Maybe that person is the scammer and intends to assert s/he is the original purchaser, showing that his/her name is on the tickets in his/her possession whereas mine have no purchaser name.  Or maybe that person is innocent -- a hacker could have intercepted the TM email and obtained a copy of the tickets and posted them for sale, while the innocent original purchaser and I, the innocent resale purchaser, both show up and discover we are victims of the scammer and only one of us can stay.

 

In any of these scenarios where the barcode is still legitimate, we could get scanned in but then have to face competing claims for the seats.  Whereas if the barcode on my tickets has been canceled by TM (because of a resale of the original tickets via TM in addition to the resale of the PDF on SH), then my tickets won't even get us in the door.  Which will still suck, but not nearly as badly as if we are in the seats and then asked to leave because the "real" purchaser shows up.  (Although since each legit bar code is only supposed to allow one entry, I'm not sure how a competing purchaser would get in if we get there first -- which is why I plan to get there first, just in case.)

 

 

Only 3.5 weeks of idle speculating left . . . .

 

[Allthelargethings]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 3:33pm

Followup: my tickets were genuine! We arrived first in line just to be extra safe but walked in smoothly with no issue whatsoever. The oddities of the tickets must have been some Stubhub automated tool or scanner problem.

 

And, as if it needs to be said, the show was phenomenal!!!

[Tkristop]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 5:19pm

Thanks for updating us!  Now I'm hoping mine will be legit, too, in a few weeks!

[Hack n Tuck Inc.]

Posted: 6/7/16 at 11:41am

Apologies for the late follow-up.  OP here.  Our tickets were legit!  We were not first in line but we were definitely near the front, so who knows -- but the barcodes scanned notwithstanding the irregularities on the tickets, and we had no trouble at all . . . except when my daughter, who swore she didn't need to use the restroom before the show, needed to go at intermission so we had to fight our way down to the basement and back up to the rear mezzanine during those 15 minutes.  :)

 

Our seats were Row B rear mezzanine, dead center, and were perfect.  Although we obviously would have liked to be closer, we didn't feel like we were too far back at all.  We had Javier in for Lin (which we knew in advance) and Austin Smith in for Leslie, but all the rest of the regular cast performed as billed.  I was a little disappointed not to see Leslie, but Austin won me over by Wait For It.  Loved his eye-rolling look back at the audience during Non-Stop too . . .

 

Updated On: 6/7/16 at 11:41 AM

[schubox]

Posted: 6/7/16 at 12:39pm

We grabbed tickets off TickPick (way cheaper fees than SH or TM, saved a ton). I noticed the same seats were up on all 3 sites, so after I bought my seats I went and checked the other sites to make sure they came off them (they did). So I felt pretty confident. Didn't have any issues.

[ClumsyDude15]

Posted: 6/7/16 at 12:45pm

Austin won me over by Wait For It.  Loved his eye-rolling look back at the audience during Non-Stop too . . .

I was at the same performance, and Austin (and his eye rolling) was so fantastic. I was slightly bummed not to see Leslie (although I had seen him previously on Broadway and off-Broadway in the show), but Austin was so good. Javi was incredible, but I knew he would be having seen him in In the Heights and he is just an absolute star. 

[jpbran]

Posted: 7/12/16 at 8:10pm

Just got my hardcopy (normal printed tix) via 2-day UPS for Hamilton in Chicago. Not an email or copier-paper printout. They SEEM legit, and look like regular TM tickets and like regular Broadway in Chicago tix I've had in the past...  Nervous about my husband and my mom making the trip to Chicago only to find out their fake. I know my money would be refunded, but it would SUCK to get up there and be turned away. Best way to verify paper tickets? 

[Tandrews]

Posted: 7/12/16 at 9:09pm

Unfortunately, there really isn't a way to verify the tickets. However, I had the same concern when purchasing tickets from SH for Hamilton recently. I spoke to SH and they informed me that they were from a longstanding seller and also said that they have been buying extra tickets as "extras" just in case people do not get in. I was also informed that SH has a process for new sellers in which they verify how the tickets were purchased and also do not pay the seller until after the show. I would buy from StubHub with confidence.