Suggestion for improving protection against ticket fraud
Hello dear eBay team,
I want to draw your attention to a problem that recently happened to me on your sister platform "[not on eBay] Punkt de" – but which is just as relevant for eBay too:
I bought a concert ticket there, but was turned away at the entrance because the barcode on the ticket had already been used by someone else. Later I noticed that the listing had uploaded a photo of the ticket with the barcode clearly visible. Apparently someone misused this photo and gained unauthorized access that way. The organizers told me this happens "very often".
That leads to two suggestions for improvement that would certainly also be helpful for eBay users:
1. Step: When creating a listing, if the keyword "Ticket" or "Entry" appears in the title, a clear warning should appear: „Warning: Please do not upload photos with visible barcode or QR codes – risk of misuse!“
2. Step: An even better solution would be an automatic one: For listings with "Ticket" or "Entry" in the title, the uploaded images could be checked directly for visible barcode or QR codes. If one is detected, a warning should appear and you could optionally have the code automatically blacked out.
I am sure that with such a feature you could further strengthen trust and security on your platform. The protective measures would not only protect your users from fraud, but also position eBay itself as a reputable platform.
Thanks for checking it out and best regards!
P.S.: As an example, I’m attaching the photo of the ticket I bought via the sister platform.
miriam@ebay
Hello @harrga! We're sorry to read that you were disappointed when buying a ticket on another platform. We appreciate your specific suggestions for protecting against ticket fraud even more.
Your requests – a warning when creating ticket offers as well as an automatic check for visible barcodes or QR codes – make sense, because protecting our users has a high priority for eBay and your ideas would help with that. From my point of view, however, organizers should also deal with this topic more intensively and find technical solutions to better prevent the misuse of ticket codes.
We have forwarded your feedback internally and are checking how such functions can be implemented on eBay.de. Some technical developments are carried out across the group, but your input is valuable and will be taken into account.
Thank you very much for your commitment and your constructive criticism! 🙂
Kind regards
Miriam
katzenjogi
·1 year agoHello everyone,
a warning certainly can’t hurt, but by now we know how the average eBay user ticks. Any kind of notice is deliberately ignored, if it doesn’t get blocked automatically by an ad blocker anyway as a pop-up window.
That was the same back then with the sister company when it was still part of eBay. There was always a warning that you should pick up the items you bought there in person, because the risk of fraud is greater with shipping.
And yet every week some buyers from the sister platform would turn up here who hadn’t been sent anything for their money. And then were completely surprised that the sellers back then could only sign up with an email address and no identity verification had taken place at all.
As an uninvolved outsider, of course, you can take the view that it’s worth it as soon as even one buyer here is protected from harm. Whether a profit-oriented company shares that view, or whether it’s just a simple cost/benefit calculation, everyone can decide that for themselves.
harrga
OP1 year agoI just tried this myself, so listing a concert ticket with a photo on eBay that shows a barcode.
I did not have a pop-up blocker enabled.
No warning or notice appeared anywhere that I should make sure not to show barcodes in ticket photos.
See attached screenshots.
harrga
OP1 year agoI wonder whether ebay.de, i.e. eBay Germany, can even implement such improvements at all, or whether further development happens entirely at the parent company in California.
Also, I wonder whether anyone here who works at eBay is even reading along. The title of this chat group ("Suggestions and feedback for the eBay platform") at least suggests that.
I'm curious to see what comes of this topic. The level of frustration among customers is high, as written at the beginning; I was affected myself yesterday, and the organizers said that this problem occurs "very frequently", meaning that the barcode on tickets bought via e.g. ebay.de had already been used beforehand.
harrga
OP1 year agoThat will be a classic thinking error in this issue:
"I had the ticket sent to me, the ticket looks like a classic cardboard ticket, so the ticket itself is what matters - not the barcode on the side."
The ticket in the photo is one that was sent out. Its barcode was stolen because the photo was published.
harrga
OP1 year ago@nostalgie59 Your comment is --if I may say so-- a good example of how widespread the problem is. Even Ebay forum participants fall prey to this misunderstanding.
But as I said, the solution is very simple, it just has to be implemented by Ebay.
harrga
OP1 year agoExactly, a warning notice is easy to implement.
Many sellers and buyers are not aware that it is often no longer the ticket itself that grants access, but ultimately only the barcode or QR code.
The fact that there are still "classic" tickets to tear off or validate for some concerts shows that we are in a transition period in which customers should be protected from this issue.
One should put oneself in the position of customers who are particularly vulnerable to this problem: customers who only rarely or for the first time buy or sell a ticket on ebay.de or are not yet familiar with the modern way access control works.
It is astonishing how many ticket offers on ebay.de show barcodes and QR codes.
harrga
OP1 year agoHere is another example screenshot of a search result on ebay.de for a search for "ticket turf". You can see that even most ticket listings contain photos with barcodes.
I think this is something that can be improved with little effort on ebay.de, for the benefit of everyone involved and to strengthen the brand.
sunrise1605
·1 year agoAnother question: how is that supposed to work?
Do people print out the image and go to the concert entrance with an A4 sheet?
That wouldn't be accepted at all, would it?
I vaguely remember something about train tickets/vouchers, where someone had the code on the image too and some genius redeemed it online.
But at a concert, you have to show the ticket ...
nostalgie59
·1 year agoAs a rule, you can buy tickets from a concert agency and choose whether you want the cardboard tickets sent to you for a fee, or whether you want electronic tickets to print out yourself.
harrga
OP1 year ago@nostalgie59 That doesn’t change the problem with barcodes/QR codes. Even a cardboard ticket that gets mailed to you nowadays usually has a barcode that can be misused if you publish photos of it.
nostalgie59
·1 year agoGood heavens, when sellers on platforms like this so recklessly offer tickets with a photo and barcode, and buyers are so naive as to buy them, then both parties may well end up suffering a not inconsiderable financial and ideal loss! If I buy a ticket from a major concert agency and then can't use it myself, then I have the option of reselling that ticket there under "Tickets from fan to fan." And that is absolutely reputable and safe for buyers! So why should you then, for example on this or other platforms, resell tickets you can't use and expose both the buyer and yourself to a risk? Sure, if you want to resell your ticket at double the price, that may not be possible on reputable ticket platforms. That said: Everyone is responsible for their own actions, and there are enough ways to find out in advance on the internet!
kenn-i-di-1
·1 year agoI think the suggestion is good and it shouldn’t be a big deal to implement such a note.
harrga
OP1 year agoThe inspectors at concert entrances, because of the large crowds, focus almost exclusively on aiming their barcode scanners at the tickets’ barcodes and successfully scanning them.
So in most cases this is completely contactless, and as a concertgoer you mainly show the end of the ticket with the barcode. None of the inspectors takes the ticket in hand or checks what it says. They only care about the barcode. Nothing is torn off the ticket anymore or ripped or anything like that.
You can imagine the rest if you have a bit of criminal energy. In a group it’s definitely easier; then the correct tickets are on top and a fake one is somewhere in between or at the bottom.
As already mentioned, the organizers there said that this happens “very often,” meaning that buyers of tickets on eBay and the like show up with a ticket that has already been invalidated and can’t get in.
So the conclusion is: this trick isn’t that hard.
And that’s a huge disaster. Just imagine: you’re happy that you can still accompany your friends to a concert because you managed to snag a ticket on eBay, and then you’re the only one who can’t get in because someone stole the barcode from the photos on eBay...
eBay should act here, because this problem happens to too many customers, and a solution is pretty simple (warn people, or scan the photos and warn them).
harrga
OP1 year agoIf you search on ebay.de for e.g. "Ticket Kunstrasen", you find many listings with ticket photos that show barcodes. This means:
Yes, this problem IS relevant for ebay.de.
sunrise1605
·1 year agoI think it's more relevant for the sellers, who apparently don't give a thought, as is unfortunately so often the case, to what they're posting.
What else is Ebay supposed to do? They can hardly take the thinking away from the sellers and buyers.
Everyone is responsible for their own listings; you can't protect anyone from stupidity.
Well, a warning notice doesn't hurt, but all-around supervised selling isn't possible.
bootyooty
·1 year agoHello @harrga ebay has had nothing to do with the other platform for years now; the former subsidiary no longer belongs to ebay.
The name ebay in front of it has also been gone for a long time.
harrga
OP1 year agoIs the problem described relevant for ebay.de?
bootyooty
·1 year agoUm ?
If you didn't know about the sale and that sales on the other platform can in no way be handled or even compared here, let alone that the other platform must not be mentioned here, then you can just admit it.
An eBay employee will certainly pass on your further suggestion.
Have a nice day.