Buying and selling tickets on Gumtree

As a music or sports fan, you may have found yourself with a ticket to an event that you can no longer attend. In this situation, it is not uncommon to use a tool like Gumtree or E-bay to help you list the ticket and reclaim your funds.

But, is it really safe selling or buying tickets on Gumtree? It works well for trading physical goods — you meet somebody, you take a look at the goods, you pay and take it home. In the case of tickets, it’s a bit more complicated — most sellers would want money “now” but the buyer can only verify ticket validity on the day of the event. In other words, it requires a leap of faith. A leap of faith from a complete stranger!

1. Seller risks

Leaking tickets online

Many sellers post photos or scans of their tickets on Gumtree to prove they are real. The barcode is the most important element of the ticket and ultimately, what gets you inside on the day of the event. People know they have to hide the barcodes in images or people could use them .

It took me one minute to open Gumtree and find a couple of examples sellers who forget to do this. Let’s take a look at the following Eminem ticket. Eminem last toured Australia 5 years ago and thanks to this Gumtree user, I can potentially go for free:

This seller left the barcodes out of the photo — but perhaps he isn’t aware that the long number below the barcode (see area highlighted in red) is just as good as the barcode itself. Each barcode has an associated string of numbers that determines what the barcode image will look like — based on this number, you can easily create a barcode with any barcode generating tool that will gain entry to the event. One is just as good as the other.

Now anybody with good Photoshop skills can make a similar looking ticket and put a barcode that scans to this number. Chances are — the ticket will work. Enjoy Eminem!

Another example:

While I’m not sure who Keith Urban is, I might just go since it’s completely free! Even though the barcode is truncated vertically (see highlighted area), horizontally it’s complete — it has full width visible. And barcodes of this type, you know, they are just repetitive vertically–just lines of different thickness.

In other words, you can scan this barcode and correct the image — recover its full size and go see Keith Urban, whom I know nothing about!

Not receiving money

Another possible issue on Gumtree is receiving a fake bank transfer confirmation from the buyer. If you send the tickets, but then realise that the money isn’t coming anytime soon — it’s too late to take the tickets back.

Since Gumtree doesn’t cover the financial part of the deal, sellers and buyers have to arrange payments themselves and things can go wrong.

If you check Gumtree’s article about ticket buying you will notice the following:

Gumtree is a local classifieds website and ads aren’t reviewed before they go live on the site. Gumtree doesn’t offer any sort of buyer protection / payment programs

So yes, your money, your problem, sorry!

2. Buyer risks

When it comes to buyers, things are even worse. The only part that can verify your tickets validity is either the ticketing platform that issued tickets or event organiser. And both are absent from the transaction.

Consider the following example. I found it in under a minute as well. I’m not even going to blur seller’s name or details since I’m convinced it’s a scammer and I’d happily expose him or her:

For starters, it’s blurry as hell. Just like most fake news or fake photos on Facebook (remember that python that ate a man story?). Scammers do this for purpose — it’s harder to notice important details or mistakes they accidentally made in Photoshop. What is this RHCP logo on top of everything? It’s definitely not real/physical, so the seller must have used Photoshop to put it on top of a “photo”.

The description says seats 437–439 but one of the tickets says seat 435. The top ticket has a weird widening effect — it’s bottom is not parallel to “HOT SEAT RESERVED SEATING” line.

My guess — it’s one fake ticket reproduced thrice in Photoshop. The quality is very low and there is a logo on top to hide all imperfections.

3. Safety precautions

Now that we have shown there are risks associated with buying and selling tickets on Gumtree, let’s see what we can do to minimize them. Tixel to the rescue!

It’s very simple–use Gumtree in combination with Tixel to complete a 100% protected, safe transaction.

Gumtree will help you find a buyer or a seller and Tixel will protect you from fake tickets and payment issues.

Seller protection:

• Tixel will charge your buyer before the ticket is passed, so your payment is guaranteed
• Tickets won’t leak under any circumstances. There will be evidence for prospective buyers that the ticket is real and verified without taking risk of posting ticket photos

Buyer protection:

• In many cases, sellers aren’t paid until the event is over, so there is no financial motivation for the seller to do anything wrong with the ticket
• All buyers are 100% financially protected
• All tickets are verified by Tixel so you never have to worry that your ticket is fake.

Next time you find a ticket on Gumtree, ask the seller to use Tixel for protection!

Next time you want to list a ticket on Gumtree, list it on Tixel first, then share the link to your ticket on Gumtree and relax!