Best site/app to safely sell tickets to an unknown buyer?
April 10, 2017 3:24 AM   Subscribe

I am selling my burning man tickets and have a buyer. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this safely and protect us both. Issue is, physical tickets aren't here yet, I can only transfer the order itself.

The way buying BM tickets works is that you buy them, then you have a Ticketfly order in your name, but the physical tickets don't ship until much later, like in the summer. I have a confirmed order but no physical tickets. The Ticketfly website has a tool to allow (non-reversable) transfer of tickets into somebody else's name. Which is what I'd be doing for my buyer. Then, the buyer would get to decide how they want their order shipped from Ticketfly, versus will call, whatever. I'm looking at PayPal, Google Wallet, and it seems all the seller protections are based on confirmation of a shipped item actually arriving, which is not something that'll be happening in this particular sale.

What would be the best way to navigate this so I don't get screwed, and so they also feel confident they won't get screwed? Buyer is in another country (not unusual for burning man attendees).
posted by robotdevil to Work & Money (9 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
It sounds to me like you are looking for an "escrow" service, if that helps you search.

I can't make any recommendations from personal experience, but the first google result for "escrow" is https://www.escrow.com/ and it sounds from their sales pitch that they would able to deal with this situation. The buyer sends the money to the escrow service; you do the ticket transfer; the buyer confirms with escrow.com that they have received the tickets; escrow.com then releases the money to you. They deal with any disputes that might arise. They're not cheap though.
posted by richb at 4:17 AM on April 10, 2017


With the caveat that I've not actually used them, safest way to handle large money transfers before a transaction actually takes place is by using an escrow account. You can usually set one up through your bank. No idea how much burning man tickets cost so that might not be practical. There are also internet escrow services. Just be really careful about choosing one and making sure you both have the correct site before making payments, since there are lots of fake ones out there.

If not, for your own protection, you want a payment method that is non-reversible, so that would mean a wire transfer or money order. You could ask for a deposit of half the agreed on price, do the transfer on ticketfly after the deposits fully clear, and ask for the remainder after sharing the info with the buyer. The trouble with these methods is that the buyer still has to trust you enough to send money to a stranger that they can't get back, and with a deposit you run the risk of the buyer deciding to screw you over (or just running out of money) before making the second deposit. You could seem scammy and/or get partially ripped off, but at least it's mutually assured destruction.
posted by prewar lemonade at 4:21 AM on April 10, 2017


It seems to me that the transfer of the ticket into your buyer's name is the "delivery" here. Any problems with shipping or will call at that point is between the seller and ticketfly.
posted by Karaage at 4:21 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Do you have mutual friends that are willing to vouch for both of you to the other? The only way I'm willing to deal with selling tickets like that to a stranger online is when a mutual contact provided a solid enough reference for me that the buyer used the Paypal "send money to a friend" feature (which does not have buyer protection) to send me the cash up front. There's still some ways those can be canceled, so I was relying on the mutual friend vouching for them as well.

Burners are notoriously flaky (and sometimes dodgy) and between the shabby customer service of the online payment companies and it being international, you'd have bad chances if they decided to defraud you. If they are not willing to establish enough trust to send you a non-reversible payment like a wire transfer (money orders aren't safe), I'd just wait until you have a physical ticket and can do use an escrow service to transfer it.
posted by Candleman at 6:35 AM on April 10, 2017


Alternative answer: use the Secure Ticket Exchange Program set up to facilitate the exchange of tickets. With this program, you're selling back at cost randomly to someone who needs them, in a safe and secure way.

The only reason to not use STEP is if you don't trust the person you're selling to, and the only reason for that is if you're scalping tickets. Please don't scalp tickets.
posted by suedehead at 7:31 AM on April 10, 2017


I wrote that wrong - the only reason not to use STEP is if you want to send the tickets to someone specific, and the only reason you need to do that but don't trust them is if you're scalping tickets. Please don't scalp tickets.
posted by suedehead at 8:28 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: STEP is not an option for tickets outside the regular price tier, I found out the hard way.
posted by robotdevil at 10:15 AM on April 10, 2017


Which tier are you looking at to sell?
posted by Vaike at 8:24 PM on April 10, 2017


One way to definitely make sure you don't get screwed is to not use VenMo (you didn't mention it, but just throwing it out there).
posted by radioamy at 4:26 PM on April 11, 2017


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