Learn a Lesson From Tickets on eBay...

[Main Street Jim]

I worked turnstiles today for the first time in about five months...LOL

Family of about ten comes up to my turnstile. First kid goes to put their ticket in; it comes up "Voided - no more usage". First parent behind the kid, same thing. I ask for all of their tickets and try a few more. Every one of the tickets - voided, no more usage.

I collect all of the tickets and ask the adults where they got their tickets.

"We bought 'em off of eBay...we paid over 800 bucks for 'em. They're five-day Park Hoppers." Not a bad deal; 80 bucks a piece (avg) for ten 5-days, considering they're well over 200 bucks each for adult tickets. I give the tickets to Ray, our coordinator. He takes them inside and runs them through the ticket reader.

Sure enough, NONE of the ten tickets are any good. "But the seller had good feedback and said they were still good!!"

Unfortunately, this family is now out 800 bucks, stuck with their seven-night hotel reservation, the flight down and back from Indiana, and no way to get into the parks. When people sell tickets on auction sites like eBay, I would recommend staying away from them. There is NO WAY of knowing just from looking at the tickets if they are any good; they have to be run through a reader at any ticket or Guest Relations window. This is something that we cannot control on the Internet.

I'm always telling people to stay away from buying tickets from other third-party sellers (like on eBay), or from ANY of the so-called "Ticket Info" stands along the International Drive or US 192 corridors - you know, the ones that say "2 Disney tickets for $25.00".

I'm not sure what the family is going to do, or if we'll take care of them. We did send them down to Guest Relations outside the park there (down by the bus stops). I hate to see families, especially a large family like that that's probably been planning for a year or more, get duped with things like that.

Just please - PLEASE - promise me y'all won't buy your park tickets off of eBay.

[Edzter86]

Thanks for sharing this story with us, Jim, despite how unofortunate it is.

This is solid proof that you can never tell with third-party ticket vendors. : [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img]

[Ian]

Thanks for the warning, Jim.

This is a good time to reinforce why INTERCOT does not promote nor encourage "cheating the system". Disney theme park tickets are NOT transferrable and buying them online or from any source other than Disney (or a travel agent or other legitimate,authorized seller) is a violation of Disney's policies.

We don't prevent people from discussing things like ticket reselling and other cheats because we're old fogies ... we do it because too often it results in situations just like the one Jim describes here. INTERCOT exists to help our members ... not strand them at the gates with expired tickets.

[Beach Club Babe]

I just feel so bad for the kids! Hopefully, they'll be able to have some recourse with E-bay. The seller should at least be banned from putting anymore items, most especially Disney tickets up for sale on E-bay!

[Main Street Jim]

Thanks folks. This is a *very* good reminder why you don't buy tickets from somewheres whare you can't *tell* what's left on the tickets.

And, Ian is correct. If the tickets *had* been good and it asked me to "Check ID" on the tickets, and it didn't match, then...again, we'd have to turn them away.

On eBay, with things like this with tickets, just because the seller has "good feedback" doesn't necessarily mean that the tickets themselves are any good.