This is our black market FAQ with some points that you need to be aware of before buying or selling a ticket on the black market (commonly called scalping):
Why do you dislike black market sales so much?
- It unfair to the people who are waiting for a ticket.
- It is inherently unsafe and with virtual tickets, it is easy for people to be confused over what a valid ticket really is.
- It is also in the grey area of what one should be doing within the law. Strictly speaking, it is not illegal per say, but you do break income tax laws if you make a profit and do not declare it.
If it is not illegal to scalp, you can not do anything to me!
No, we cannot do anything to you, but your tickets will be suspended.
Even if blackmarket trading is not illegal by law, it is against our
terms of business and the parties we sell tickets
for also frown upon re-selling tickets for their events.
In fact, the terms of business binds you by contract upon getting the ticket, to not resell the ticket for profit.
The terms are binding and makes blackmarketing breach of contract.
PTN follows the policy set by our customers and the customers do not want their guests to pay hiked up prices, so we are quite happy in helping parties enforce this policy.
But I do not want my ticket, so I want to sell it. Typically tickets are refundable until a short while before the sales close, you can sell tickets back to PTN and get a refund less the ticket fee.
The ticket fee is still charged because it costs us money to first accept your payment and then refund it later, both in our administration and in fees to third parties like our bank and credit card companies.
But if I bought more than one ticket, I am actually selling it to a friend, am I not? Technically yes. We do however understand that friends normally does not make a profit on helping other friends, so taking money for giving the ticket to your friend for the price of the ticket is fine. What is more important, your friend should be able to trust the seller (you) of the ticket, who ALWAYS will be the owner of the ticket.
But I bought a ticket, why can you change the owner of the ticket to me? Because of set practices should make it impossible for people to sell tickets without involving close trust.
If you cannot trust the guy who is selling the ticket, then you should not do so.
You should not buy the ticket from any one else than PTN, this ensures that the ticket you buy will have the original price set by the party and that it is genuine.
The owner (the one that pays for the ticket to PTN) cannot be changed and the owner of a ticket can always move the seat and change the user, this ought to ensure that noone will ever buy a ticket from someone that they cannot trust.
So what happens if I want to cheat in line and buy a ticket from a scalper? Because the owner can always change the user, you stand an excellent chance of getting screwed over by the scalper, remember he is already breaking the rules, so it is very easy for him to remove you as a user and sell the ticket to someone else. Remember, he is a scalper, not your friend!
What do you do with scalpers? When we find that someone is scalping tickets we invalidate all his tickets, including his own.
We do give a supension period to allow for complaints.
Only the owner (the orginal one) can complain to us about the suspension.
You will be given information about why and if the tickets were revoked, and you can place civil charges towards the scalper for fraud if you would like. We would be happy to support you in doing so, but your ticket will still be invalid.
What about the abuse of printed tickets? They are SO easy to copy. The actual ticket doess not guarentee access, every single ticket number is checked by the system at the entrance, so a ticket number can only be used once, even if you photocopied 10000 of the same ticket, only one user would gain access.
So what should I do? If you have a ticket, go into the system and check that you are the user of a ticket with that number. If you are not, you are not the user of the ticket and you cannot use it.
So what if somebody makes a last minute change? All tickets are locked within a week of the party. After this, you cannot change user or seater of the ticket.
The only exception is for those who have not assigned one, and they get only ONE try.
