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Don't Get Burned by Fake Concert TicketsIdentify the Phony Concert Tickets
Concert Tickets
Justin Bieber Tickets Lady Gaga Tickets Drake Tickets Eagles Tickets Eminem Tickets Jonas Brothers Tickets Kiss Tickets Rush Tickets What's Happening Near You Atlanta Concert Events Boston Concert Events Chicago Concert Events Cleveland Concert & Events Dallas Concert Events Denver Concert & Events Hartford Concert & Events Houston Concert & Events Las Vegas Concert & Events Los Angeles Concert & Events Miami Concert & Events Minneapolis Concert & Events New York Concert & Events Philadelphia Concert & Events Phoenix Concert & Events San Diego Concert & Events San Francisco Concert & Events Seattle Concert & Events St. Louis Concert & Events Tampa Concert & Events Washington D.C. Concert & Events For tips while shopping on ebay, or any other online venue, check out our guide for safe ebay shopping tips. The turorial should offer some good universal information which can easily be applied to any product listing on ebay. The Ticketmaster guide below deals only with the details of tickets, and does not get into important topics like seller feedback, return policy etc. These issues are all handled in our online buying guide. Price: Everyone has heard it before: If it looks to good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. However, you would be surprised by the amount of people who could have avoided being scammed if they just simply followed this mantra. Scratch test: This is another fairly standard test, so we are mentioning it early in the guide. Scratch a small spot of the ticket with a penny [or your nail]. If the markings smudge, due to a cheap or low quality printing mechanism, than most likely the ticket is a counterfeit. This can be done quickly within a few seconds. An authentic ticket will be a higher quality and will not smudge or scratch too easily. Physical attributes : A hard stock ticketmaster ticket has very thin lamination which illuminates in the light, creating an slight glare. If the ticket does not have any laminate qualities and looks overly dull, than it is possible that the ticket is a phony. Scan the ticket closely by eye, and look for any obvious imperfections that would be have been caused by a sloppy, unprofessional or rushed print job. Blurry and asymmetric areas are always a red flag. Big name event tickets will be high quality complete with hi-resolution graphics and will be error-free. Check for any holograms, and it is helpful if you have some previous knowledge of the particular company’s holograms before hand. Also typos, incorrect information, grammatical or punctuation errors are overwhelming indicators the ticket is fraudulent. Below is an image of a fake ticket with noticeable typos: 
Note: The Arial font is not the tell in this picture. Ticketmaster will use arial fonts. The typesetting is incorrect. The space in the Live Nation url is incorrect, and the slash in the AC/DC url is not a possible character. Also, the comma in “NOV, 13 2008,” is incorrect. The bar code is also fuzzy, a tell that we mention later in the guide. Below is an image of an authentic ticket: Notice that the url is correct and there is no awkward comma in the date. 
Ticketmaster logo: Study the ticket closely. The word "Ticketmaster," may be repeated over and over again, making up the thin, light blue rectangle. This may be outlined by a large white rectangle containing the artists name or the specific event in the center of the ticket. This detail may vary slightly depending on the year made etc, however if there is no colored border around the artist’s name or the event, or if the border is incorrectly filled in, than that should raise a red flag. Bar Code: The bar code is another physical attribute that a lower quality fake may have reproduced incorrectly. Study the bar code for blurry, smeared, smudged lines. If the bar code looks fuzzy in any manner, that should raise a red flag. [In the image below the fake ticket is clearly a little blurry]. Below is an image of a fake bar code: Notice the blurry print between some of the lines. Instead of white space, it looks grayish. 
Below is an authentic bar code: Note the crisp, solid lines, and the clear white space between the code lines. 
Scheduling: Always know the event times and dates beforehand. It sounds like an obvious concept, but you would be surprised at how many fake tickets have incorrect times and dates, that would be easily spotted it the buyer knew the correct information beforehand. Seating chart: Floor and seating sections are usually alpha numerical. However, some counterfeiters will modify tickets to sell the illusion premium real estate. Seating arrangements on tickets generally read something like this: Floor 1, Row A. [Both numbers and letters]. However scammer may try to sell tickets that say Floor 1, Row 1. [All numbers] This is a way to produce more tickets with the illusion of front row seating. City Search: Check the back of the ticket. Some of the latest Ticketmaster tickets feature Citysearch data. If there is nothing on the back it is obviously counterfeit. Ticketmaster Coloring: The base color for the majority of US Ticketmaster concert and event tickets is white. Other colors like orange, green or blue on it, may be part of the general design, but the base of the ticket will always be white. Lamp light: If you hold an authentic Ticketmaster ticket up to a strong light source, the white areas of the ticket should now glow blue when reflected in the light source. A real ticket will also illuminate blue outside in the sunlight. Below are images of a Ticketmaster ticket out of the light, and in direct light: Notice how the white rectangular area becomes a solid, indigo blue. 
Black Light: A small pen sized black light is a good tool to have when checking for counterfeit tickets. A black light will illuminate certain chemicals that are normally invisible. A Ticketmaster ticket should have logos or sophisticated watermarks on the backside. These marking are intended to be inconspicuous in normal light but obvious under black light, as a means to decipher counterfeit tickets. Scanning tickets with a black light is a good way to authenticate your purchase. [ebay] Concert Tickets Justin Bieber Tickets Lady Gaga Tickets Drake Tickets Eagles Tickets Eminem Tickets Jonas Brothers Tickets Kiss Tickets Rush Tickets What's Happening Near You Atlanta Concert Events Boston Concert Events Chicago Concert Events Dallas Concert Events Denver Concert & Events Houston Concert & Events Las Vegas Concert & Events Los Angeles Concert & Events Miami Concert & Events Minneapolis Concert & Events New York Concert & Events Philadelphia Concert & Events Phoenix Concert & Events San Diego Concert & Events San Francisco Concert & Events Seattle Concert & Events St. Louis Concert & Events Tampa Concert & Events Washington D.C. Concert & Events |