Boots and Hearts
A story that was published last month by 1310 News in Ottawa is a harsh reminder that one must be very careful where you purchase tickets to festivals like Boots and Hearts and Ottawa Bluesfest. The article tells the story of an Ottawa woman who searched for, and found, tickets to the sold out Boots and Hearts festival on Craigslist. She purchased the tickets for $800 and long story short they never showed up. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time we hear about a story like this.
Boots and Hearts issued this alert this morning:
Please be advised that a number of fans have contacted us sharing stories of fraudulent ticket sales. As stated on our website, we strongly advise against purchasing tickets from any third parties. At present, no print-at-home or hard tickets have been issued for this event. Confirmation codes have been emailed to all purchasers which will be followed by a print-at-home-ticket closer to the festival.
Please be wary of all third party ticket sales as counterfeit tickets or wristbands can not be honoured and we would hate to see any more of our fans fall victim to fraud.
I recently had tickets to a KISS concert in Calgary that was originally scheduled for July when I was at the Calgary Stampede but I was unable to attend the rescheduled date so I put them on Kijiji. It took a while to find a buyer but when I did I first sent him a photo with the current date to prove that the tickets existed and then had the buyer send a small deposit so I could ship the tickets and then upon arrival the remaining funds were sent. There is a trust factor involved in the process but generally if the seller is honest and the tickets are legit there shouldn’t be reason for concern.
I always tell people to make purchases like this using Paypal & a major Credit Card, not a pre-paid Credit Card, this way if the sale goes bad you have some buyer protection. Naturally it doesn’t hurt to check with the event in question as well to find out if they’ve even issued physical tickets yet, which wasn’t the case for Boots and Hearts who normally issues the physical tickets closer to the actual event.
No one wants to see fans out of money, I personally rallied for numerous fans after the Capital Hoedown was cancelled in 2012 but if you er on the side of caution ticket disasters like this one can be avoided. Unfortunately there are those out there who want to ruin the fun for others but here’s hoping that in time common sense will prevail and these scumbags will be out of business.
