From scams to payment: Everything you need to know about buying tickets online

The times of walking into a store, a concert venue or a sports stadium to buy your tickets in person, or even over the phone, have become a thing of the past in recent years. But as technology advances and more websites appear – all offering cheaper deals on your tickets – it’s easy to get caught out in the online maze.

However, there’s no reason to fall into a trap when buying online, with a few simple tips ensuring you don’t get scammed and feel confident paying on the internet when visiting trusted sites. While many concert and sports venues will allow you to book tickets directly on their websites, other dedicated ticket sites can often offer up a cheaper deal too – and many are completely trustworthy.

Everywhere from Ticketek and Ticketmaster to StubHub and Eventbrite offer great deals on music, sports, trips away and more, with online security in place to block any potential scams. So what do you need to know when using these sites?

Depending what you’re hoping to buy tickets for, it’s usually as simple as typing in the name of the website you want to try on your search engine – ensuring it’s the correct URL when you click through – and searching in the navigation bar for what you want to book. A dropdown usually appears showing dates and times available, with prices for each time and venue for you to compare.

Once you’ve selected your seat, you will be able to advance to the payment and delivery pages. Most sites will offer you the option of having your tickets emailed to you, text to your phone or sometimes posted to your home address. Choosing a digital copy by email or text is super simple, with almost all venues now accepting these online copies at the door. Instead of stamping or cutting a paper copy, they will scan your ticket barcode from your phone and you’re all set.

However, when you’re starting to buy online for the first time, it’s important to always be aware of scammers and the possibility of being caught out by crooks. The ACCC offers a few tips to ensure you remain vigilant online.

The most important step is ensuring you buy from an authorised ticket seller. The official websites of the venues, as well as the well-known and refutable ticket websites mentioned above, are all legitimate and will usually carry conditions that restrict their resale or transfer above face value. If you spot someone trying to sell you a ticket from an unauthorised website, at either a very high or unusually low price, it’s likely it’s a scammer.

A great way to triple check a website’s authenticity is to look at their contact details on their website. Most should have a landline number you can call. If there’s only a PO box and a mobile number, it’s most likely a scam – as these are much harder to trace by authorities.

Meanwhile, check the URL at every stage to ensure it starts with “https” and not just “http”. It should also have a small padlock symbol to the left of the website address, which confirms it’s a secure site. And finally, most legitimate sites will be listed as part of a ticket brokering or seller association, so that’s a great way to ensure you’re on the right track.  If it’s not listed, it may not confirm it’s a scam but it’s best to be more wary in that case.

If you’re contacted by email, asking you to re-confirm personal details or payment details, don’t reply or send them through. Authorised ticket sites will almost never do this so if in doubt, call the original website and ask them over the phone.

Another great tip to keep in mind when paying for the ticket is to check that the site isn’t asking you for a very specific payment method such as a gift card, cash, or cryptocurrencies. You should simply be able to pay with a debit or credit card, or by services such as PayPal.

To be even more secure, it’s best to pay with a credit card online. While banks can sometimes get a chargeback for debit card payments if something goes wrong and you realise you’ve paid an unauthorised site, it’s much easier to secure with your bank when paying with credit.