resale nightmare and lesson learned
I am going to begin by saying that this was a huge learning experience for me and I take accountability for my ignorance. Today I discovered what a terrible, and morally corrupt corporation TM truly is. While it's all legal, it's completely ethically vacant.
I had two Olivia Rodrigo tickets for the Boston show 10/17 in Boston this next weekend. I was lucky enough to purchase great seats for face value. Unfortunately we had a pet emergency and my daughter asked me to sell the tickets so that her cat could receive life-saving surgery. When I researched resale costs, I was shocked at how much our seats were listed for. I looked at both SeatGeek, and Stubhub. I was not comfortable selling on either of those sites due to feeling like they were not secure. In addition to the sense of insecurity, I am NOT in the scalping market and in no way would I be comfortable reselling them at the suggested price.
With both of those scenarios, I looked at the resale option directly through TM. I believed that this would be the most secure way to resell the tickets, both for the buyer and seller. When I went to list them, I got the "Good news, you have an offer". You also do NOT get to set the price. TM decides that for you.Which right then and there should have been a huge red flag because when you search, there is no way to actually purchase through TM. BUT the price was way less that I saw listed on third party resale site. I slept on it, and reluctantly I decided it would make sense to list them. By the end of the day, the cost of parking, food, and merch, it would easily be a $300+ day for us. I accepted the offer and they were sold immediately. About 1 hour later my tickets were listed on Seat Geek for TWICE as much as I sold them for. Now I'm not mad that I missed out on listing them for myself, I'm angry that I was trying to avoid this entire scenario. I just picture some kid who loves Olivia can't see her because of these outrageous prices. It's absolutely disgusting to me.
In addition to that, TM gets to charge what every they want for *multiple* service fees, and those fees are STEEP.
Is Ticketmaster the scalpers themselves? Who actually "makes an offer" because they were never listed on TM, and they immediately went to a third party.
Now I wish I never sold them. I'll never ever do that again. At least my cat gets to have his surgery.
TLDR: Ticketmaster is a filthy, and corrupt company.
ETA:. I profited nearly $1k on these tickets. This isn't about me losing money, quite the opposite.