Suspicious account/ 3rd party fraudulent ticket sellers

Hi Rya - 

We created a constituency called Suspected 3rd Party Seller (3PS), that we label anyone who we think might be a one of those accounts, so that everyone who interacts with them, knows that there are certain rules we apply.  

The rules we use are:

-no reprints on group sales (we say that we want to ensure everyone gets the tickets, so we hold them at will call if groups need to have them reprinted)

-we do not mail to them out of state

-any reprints period must be picked up in person, and can't be mailed.

-any reprints get labled as being a reprint (we hand  write this by the barcode so the person buying will at least question it, or be aware that they have been reprinted)

-we don't allow them to purchase the lowest priced seats if we can help it.

Hey Jordan,

Did you know you can have Tessitura print reprint on the ticket so you don't have to hand write that? It's an element you can put in your ticket design and then adjust the size it prints in and where it prints. It's in the data group "order" and is Reprint Flag.

- Chris

That is a beautiful thing to know!  Thanks for sharing that, haha!

We do like to write it out in a different color so it really stands out, but I'm sure playing with size of text could accomplish the same thing.  

Hello!

Once we find a scalper selling tickets we immediately add a scalper constituency to their account and deactivate their credit cards on file so that they are not able to use it for future purposes. We are also drafting up a letter to be sent to scalpers letting them know that their order has been canceled and any future scalped tickets will be returned without refund. The problem for us is that many third party sit do not display seat locations so it's hard for us to find scalpers before showtime

Some of our presenting companies' box offices have a ticket limit and tickets must be held for will call. This seems to work for them but since we make use of print at home tickets, it doesn't really work for us.

I know that a scalper session at TLCC last year spoke of certain third party software that can be purchased that blocks certain IP addresses from registering new accounts once identified as a scalper, but I assume that takes much money.

Hopefully, this helped a little bit!

And...now that I'm thinking about it...I can't remember if it prints the word reprint or a big R in a box.

Pretty sure it can be controlled, at least to a certain extent.  Ours print out "Du" (i.e. duplicate).

Thanks, Autumn-

Very helpful. I have added a constituency to start. Our biggest problem are those websites that don't advertise the location of seats, like you mentioned. The names and addresses change constantly, however, they are almost always NY addresses. We may consider not mailing out of state. We have a ticket limit as well; but again, it's not so much a scalper issue as it is these 3rd party websites with similar domain names. 

I would love to see a draft of your letter (if your org does not mind sharing)

Thanks, Jordan!

We are going to use your constituency code; 3PS. When you say that you don't mail them out of state, do you mean only group sale tickets or all tickets? 

We dont mail to anyone with that constituency out of state. We have a ton of the who buy 6 or 8 at a time from multiple accounts, and have them mailed to the same place. So we hold any of those. 

Of course, attached is a draft we're in the works on updating.Scalper Letter.docx