Tickets on eBay: Safe?

[wannabenewsboy]

My sister and her husband bought park hopper passes on eBay for our upcoming trip to Disney/Orlando (arriving Jan 6, flying home Jan 13). Mom and I have been considering doing the same, but several travel guides we have looked at have pretty much said buyer beware, and have said similar things about buying from offsite vendors. Is it safe to buy tickets on eBay, or should we just buy them from Disney? We're looking at getting 3-day Hoppers.

 

[unkadug]

My sister and her husband bought park hopper passes on eBay for our upcoming trip to Disney/Orlando (arriving Jan 6, flying home Jan 13). Mom and I have been considering doing the same, but several travel guides we have looked at have pretty much said buyer beware, and have said similar things about buying from offsite vendors. Is it safe to buy tickets on eBay, or should we just buy them from Disney? We're looking at getting 3-day Hoppers.

The thing about buying tickets on Ebay is, you could get to Disney and the tickets could be absolutely worthless. And you will have NO recourse.

I highly discourage such practices. :wave:

Disney tickets are non-transferable, so basically anyone selling them online is breaking the rules.(and Disney will have NO pity on you)

 

[natalia1681]

I have to agree ^^ here. You could get fortunate and get an honest person to sell their remaining days to you. Or you could get screwed. It's unfortunate, but true. And you won't be able to find out until you arrive at the gate. hopefully your mom and sister got lucky and their tickets will be good. I am not one to take that risk. Try buying your tickets thru AAA. It won't save you much $, but will save you a little.:wave:

 

[smk]

My sister and her husband bought park hopper passes on eBay for our upcoming trip to Disney/Orlando (arriving Jan 6, flying home Jan 13). Mom and I have been considering doing the same, but several travel guides we have looked at have pretty much said buyer beware, and have said similar things about buying from offsite vendors. Is it safe to buy tickets on eBay, or should we just buy them from Disney? We're looking at getting 3-day Hoppers.

WDW tickets are scanned thru a machine when you enter the park, along with scanning the ticket you must put a finger onto a scanner, that finger print is the FOREVER tied to that ticket. If I leave one park and hop to another park and I try to scan the ticket using a different finger, the ticket is not going to work. Ebay may be safe and cheaper when buying used sporting equipment etc...but tickets? These tickets could be too old, already have a day or more used with someone else's finger scan....I hope your sister has some recourse to get her money back or the resources to buy tickets from Disney. I think the savings from a broker in Florida is only a few dollars, I hope that your sister can use the tickets but I fear she has been taken. Save yourself the trouble and buy the tickets from AAA or Disney, even a local travel agent can help you. Don't buy from ebay!!

 

[davidpw97]

My family went to WDW a few weeks ago. My parents bought 4 adult and 1 child, 2 day hopper passes on EBAY and everything worked out fine. The person selling the tickets wasn't too far from where we were staying. My parents met him on the morning we were planning on using the tickets and all went well. There were no issues with finger scanning and we never had any problems at all with the tickets. Ebay is pretty good about keeping track of the people selling things on their site and my mother uses ebay all the time so she's good about checking out the people she buys things from before buying them. The person she bought the tickets from had a great rating from other customers and very positive reviews as well. Try to talk to the people you're buying things from, read their reviews and talk to other people who have bought stuff from them. I don't think ebay would allow people to keep selling stuff if they received too many complaints or were always defrauding their customers. If you're getting a good deal and if the person selling seems fair and has good reviews, then I don't see any reason not to trust ebay when it comes to Disney tickets.

 

[wannabenewsboy]

Thanks for your help everyone! The seller has positive feedback from everyone she's sold to, and I've sent messages to some of her past customers. Still waiting for replies. Also, the tickets are to be picked up at Disney, so they haven't been used previously, which sounds safe to me. I think we may go ahead with it if she can get us as many tickets as we need, but we'll make sure to put it on a credit card so we have some recourse to get our money back should this not work out.

 

[Rob562]

I think we may go ahead with it if she can get us as many tickets as we need, but we'll make sure to put it on a credit card so we have some recourse to get our money back should this not work out.

Just be aware that if what is going on is, in fact, against the Disney rules for tickets (and therefore against Florida state law), your credit card company may not be very accommodating in getting your money back from an "illegal" activity.

My suggestions on where to purchase tickets:
-Direct from Disney
-Through your travel agent
-From AAA or another travel company (like Southwest Airlines or Alamo)
-From an *authorized* ticket reseller such as TicketMania or UndercoverTourist.

As others have said, there are SO many ways that eBay ticket transactions can go wrong. You could end up with tickets that have less than the supposed number of days; NO days at all; tickets that have the right number of days but you can't use them because they're partially used and your finger-scan doesn't match the ticket. (And when a finger-scan doesn't match, they ask for ID, and then your ID doesn't match the name on the ticket and the confiscate the ticket...)

Play it safe and only get your tickets from a reputable and verifiable seller. The extra couple of dollars is worth it for the peace-of-mind.

-Rob

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

For the sake of a few $$$ and to avoid disappointment - buy through an official source

 

[wannabeBelle]

I would never advise anyone to purchase tickets on Ebay for any number of reasons. The first one is that if a ticket is partially used at all, it is non transferrable. Also there is no concrete way to know how many park days and what options were put on the ticket without going to Disney and having it scanned!!!! For the sake of your vacation go through Disney or one of the legit wholesale vendors that are out there! Belle

 

[Master Yoda]

This just in from the beating a dead horse news room....

Never buy tickets on eBay. All Disney tickets are non-transferable. It is against Florida state lay to resell any previously used theme park ticket. There is no way to verify a ticket or vouchers validity other than taking it to guest services at the parks. If it is a newer MYW ticket the ticket holders name and biometric scans are encoded on the ticket. If the scan does not work at the gate you will be asked to produce ID. If the ID you give them does not match the name on the ticket you will be denied entry to the parks. Don't risk a vacation being ruined to save a few bucks.

 

[SewIn2Disney]

I would recommend Undercovertourist.com. I just ordered from them last week, and got my tickets a day and a half later! They occasionally run a few sales (not much, but it all helps) PLUS you don't have to pay tax or shipping, so saving on the tax alone can be around 20 bucks per ticket. They were great to work with, and they are an authorized Disney ticket seller.

 

[isitingood]

This just in from the beating a dead horse news room....

Never buy tickets on eBay. All Disney tickets are non-transferable. It is against Florida state lay to resell any previously used theme park ticket. There is no way to verify a ticket or vouchers validity other than taking it to guest services at the parks. If it is a newer MYW ticket the ticket holders name and biometric scans are encoded on the ticket. If the scan does not work at the gate you will be asked to produce ID. If the ID you give them does not match the name on the ticket you will be denied entry to the parks. Don't risk a vacation being ruined to save a few bucks.

They are only non-transferable if they are used. Disney can't do anything if the tickets are new that is why they have not done anything about tickets being sold on EBay but it's illegal to sell used tickets on Ebay so never buy used ones.:wave:

 

[isitingood]

My sister and her husband bought park hopper passes on eBay for our upcoming trip to Disney/Orlando (arriving Jan 6, flying home Jan 13). Mom and I have been considering doing the same, but several travel guides we have looked at have pretty much said buyer beware, and have said similar things about buying from offsite vendors. Is it safe to buy tickets on eBay, or should we just buy them from Disney? We're looking at getting 3-day Hoppers.

Never buy used Disney tickets on Ebay it's illegal and if you report the person selling the used tickets Ebay will shut down the auction. My friend bought new tickets on Ebay and never had a problem but the seller had sold many Disney tickets,had 100% feedback , sold over 4,000 items and has been an Ebay seller for over 10 years plus he responded right away when my friend asked questions. Just be cautious and if you don't feel right about it don't do it just buy the tickets from Disney.

 

[Dubman]

October '05 I bought tickets for my inlaws on Ebay.. Seller had 99.9% feedback.. Everything went fine in our case, and the tickets actually came from Disney reservations.. Saved alot on a 2-day park hopper w/1 extra.. His Ebay user ID is jimmyming and it looks like he stopped selling them in January.. Wonder how he was able to purchase from Disney, have them sent from Disney to us, and still save so much.. Paid 179.00 each at the time which was about 50.00 lower then gate price..

 

[smk]

Never buy used Disney tickets on Ebay it's illegal and if you report the person selling the used tickets Ebay will shut down the auction. My friend bought new tickets on Ebay and never had a problem but the seller had sold many Disney tickets,had 100% feedback , sold over 4,000 items and has been an Ebay seller for over 10 years plus he responded right away when my friend asked questions. Just be cautious and if you don't feel right about it don't do it just buy the tickets from Disney.

Off subject some what....Has ebay really been around that long? 10 years? That would make it 1996, I got a PC and AOL e-mail account then but thought ebay started much later. Shows how much I was paying attention!

 

[isitingood]

Off subject some what....Has ebay really been around that long? 10 years? That would make it 1996, I got a PC and AOL e-mail account then but thought ebay started much later. Shows how much I was paying attention!

Ebay was founded in 1995

 

[unkadug]

Ebay was founded in 1995

I never had heard of Ebay till Rosie O'Donnell started selling off her desks from her talk show. :hammer:

 

[smk]

Just because I can't let things go...I looked on eBay tonight and found numerous Disney tickets for sale. One seller even said the ticket was only used one day of four, something about someone in her traveling party getting sick so the they had to leave their vacation early and wanted to sell the remaining days. Never saw what happened to the bid because I had to leave for awhile and run an errand, couldn't find it when I returned. I hope NO ONE bought that ticket. I did see the back of the ticket in a picture and it expires at the end of December. Several CM selling their "special", "one of a kind" tickets that admittedly they say the get for free when taking friends and family to the parks, nice. Even say they are CMs. One special UK ticket for 14 days of park hopping, originally sold to only a resident of the UK. No one has bid on that one yet. Lots of time share tickets with the buyer beware...must be over 25 to purchase and sit thru a time share speel, comes with the added bonus ticket to Blizzard Beach. Of curse it is closed right now but apparently that shouldn't matter. I saw 2, one day park hopper tickets, advertised like this 2, 4 park hopper passes. The bids were 200 dollars. Can a person really park hop to all 4 parks in one day? I know people can physically do it but why? My guess is that someone wasn't reading the ticket description all that well and thinks they are bidding on a 4 day park hopper. So, I guess they are out there. I won't buy from eBay, way too risky for me. Signed, chicken:lol:

 

[yazmin182]

I have never had trouble with eBay in the past, and as some people have already said, they bought some tickets and had no problems. A lot of times people get free tickets that they don't want, or CM's have tickets, or whatever the situation is, it's a win win situation for both the buyer and the seller! Just like everyone said, check up their feedback, make sure the ticket is new and i'm sure everything will be fine.

Good luck and have fun!

Oh ya, and as someone already mentioned, some ticket sellers may be part of a timeshare co. Honestly it's not that bad to watch a timeshare presentation! Usually you get free snacks, it's nice to look around the property and you save a lot on tickets. My family and I went, we got free breakfast and 3 free tickets to Universal Studios! It took 2 hrs of the day, but we saved a lot of money!

 

[wannabeBelle]

Just because I can't let things go...I looked on eBay tonight and found numerous Disney tickets for sale. One seller even said the ticket was only used one day of four, something about someone in her traveling party getting sick so the they had to leave their vacation early and wanted to sell the remaining days. Never saw what happened to the bid because I had to leave for awhile and run an errand, couldn't find it when I returned. I hope NO ONE bought that ticket. I did see the back of the ticket in a picture and it expires at the end of December. Several CM selling their "special", "one of a kind" tickets that admittedly they say the get for free when taking friends and family to the parks, nice. Even say they are CMs. One special UK ticket for 14 days of park hopping, originally sold to only a resident of the UK. No one has bid on that one yet. Lots of time share tickets with the buyer beware...must be over 25 to purchase and sit thru a time share speel, comes with the added bonus ticket to Blizzard Beach. Of curse it is closed right now but apparently that shouldn't matter. I saw 2, one day park hopper tickets, advertised like this 2, 4 park hopper passes. The bids were 200 dollars. Can a person really park hop to all 4 parks in one day? I know people can physically do it but why? My guess is that someone wasn't reading the ticket description all that well and thinks they are bidding on a 4 day park hopper. So, I guess they are out there. I won't buy from eBay, way too risky for me. Signed, chicken:lol:

Thanks for the investigative time and energy. Great job on this. Will I admit that potentially that a ticket can be purchased from Ebay for Disney and not have a problem? Yes. Am I willing to bet a large sum of money as well as part of my vacation time and happiness on it?? Not a shot. There are too many chances for me to take. Id just as soon get my tix through an official outlet such as Disney themselves, or an authorized ticket broker. You arent alone in being chicken on this one, just showing some good sense and not willing to gamble when not necessary!!! Belle