Did you get a STEP Ticket?

freeeeeman · Post by **freeeeeman** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:27 pm

junglesmacks wrote:
freeeeeman wrote:(here's hoping paypal protects me like they claim... that was the only reason i was willing to take a chance.)
Does this mean that you went ahead and took the CL plunge?

yes. i bought tickets "at cost" for $400. i couldn't figure out why someone would want to scam someone else using paypal given that paypal aggressively pursues that kind of stuff. (i've been on the other end of paypal when the buyer forgot they purchased something.) so i decided to take a chance. i should have google'd their name first! i'm sure i'll get the money back eventually, but i'd rather have the tickets...

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:33 pm

Ouch.

I'm hoping that you used a credit card with PayPal instead of a bank account or debit card?

The problem with using a bank/debit card is that even if PayPal decides in your favor, they are only going to "attempt" to collect the money from the seller. If they've drained their bank account and PayPal can't collect, you're SOL. If you use a credit card, you can always file a claim against PayPal with your CC company for non-receipt and you'll win..

freeeeeman · Post by **freeeeeman** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:38 pm

junglesmacks wrote: I'm hoping that you used a credit card with PayPal instead of a bank account or debit card?

indeed i did...

lemur · Post by **lemur** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:48 pm

junglesmacks wrote:
organizedchaos wrote:(junglesmacks/lemur, i'm talking to you here).

You're in luck! Word on the street is that lemur and I will be doing some creamed corn wrestling before he serves it in his camp.

That's flattering though, thanks.. and see you in the dust!

i will be totally naked during the corn wrestling ...i am very pale.. so bring your sunglasses...some mashed potatoes for eating the corn with, to

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:57 pm

That corn eating is all yours, buddy. I'll even save some extra for you after the final JOTS run before the MnG. You pick it out though.

lucky420 · Post by **lucky420** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:04 pm

lol I see you guys are about 12 yrs old today.

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:18 pm

Sorry maw..

lucky420 · Post by **lucky420** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:36 pm

no, no apologies needed. i love immaturity becuase half the time that is my mind set too.

organizedchaos · Post by **organizedchaos** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:38 pm

Thumbs up to that!

kiss-o-matic · Post by **kiss-o-matic** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:09 pm

freeeeeman wrote:
junglesmacks wrote: I'm hoping that you used a credit card with PayPal instead of a bank account or debit card?
indeed i did...

Doesn't Paypal honor chargebacks either way?

no checking

While BMorg reserves the right to cancel tickets, do they effectively do this after they've shipped? Could someone be selling tickets that have been voided, but with no way to check if they're legit or not?

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:13 pm

kiss-o-matic wrote:
freeeeeman wrote:
junglesmacks wrote: I'm hoping that you used a credit card with PayPal instead of a bank account or debit card?
indeed i did...
Doesn't Paypal honor chargebacks either way?

PayPal doesn't "chargeback". If you as a buyer make a claim against a seller and win, they will attempt to re-claim the money from the seller. They don't refund a dime to you that isn't taken directly back from the seller. If the seller quick clears out their bank account before PayPal can collect anything, you'll get a nice "We're sorry but..." letter from PayPal. If you used a bank account/debit card to fund your PayPal transaction, you have no recourse. If you use a credit card, you can dispute the actual PayPal transaction with your credit card company and win every time in this type of case. PayPal admitted that there was a fault of service but yet did not refund the money. You have all the evidence you need. I've done it at least 3-4 times.

This exact thing happened to me for around $3k years ago when an online printer claimed that their credit card processing system was down. I lost $3k but thank dog I also managed to get it back in a class action lawsuit that was quietly filed against PayPal a year later on behalf of everyone that had used bank accounts to fund a transaction and lost. PayPal claiming "protection" even when in reality you're not fully protected is false advertising.. but something that they still do to this day because they get away with it more often than not.

Moral of the story: Whenever you're using PayPal for any transaction that you have even a slight inkling of doubt about, always use a credit card.

kiss-o-matic · Post by **kiss-o-matic** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:45 pm

Worth noting. I sell through Paypal quite a bit, and have luckily never been hit w/ this. I also keep my customer base somewhat inclusive.

Doesn't Paypal more or less force you to use your remaining balance, then the remainder on the credit card?

Borris · Post by **Borris** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:58 pm

Back to our original topic.
STEP email arrived yesterday, July 5th at 07:05 EST. 2 tickets at the $390 level are now waiting for me at will call. My original timestamp was 12:17:00. See you all on the playa.

Post by **Savannah** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:00 pm

Congratulations, Borris.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:49 am

Savannah wrote:
gyre wrote:Probably not fraud.
Maybe not criminal.
Look up intent.
Everyone else can look it up. (Be sure to do it for your specific state and country, dolls!)

Since laws vary from place to place, ePlaya is not a good platform for organizing certain, specific kinds of shenanigans even with the most noble of intents.

Sorry, Savannah

Wasn't addressing you, just the question in general.

Everyone should understand how intent plays into things though.
It's often the only thing that determines whether something is completely legal or criminal.

kiss-o-matic · Post by **kiss-o-matic** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:20 am

Everyone should understand how intent plays into things though.
It's often the only thing that determines whether something is completely legal or criminal.

Ebay will likely hunt you down by IP/CC or something, and the sellers will sell with BIN only. Unless the anti-scalping robin hood sits there hitting refresh all day, many will slip through the cracks.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:27 am

Ebay has apparently been very successful at keeping people banned that thought they had used adequate proxies.

Some have been unsuccessful getting back on again using new names, etc.

I don't know how they do it, but they clearly have more capability than they let on.

lemur · Post by **lemur** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:37 am

gyre wrote:Ebay has apparently been very successful at keeping people banned that thought they had used adequate proxies.

Some have been unsuccessful getting back on again using new names, etc.

I don't know how they do it, but they clearly have more capability than they let on.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:44 am

Interesting site.
I'll have to try that while using a rolling proxy.

The case I am aware of was someone probably selling clone merchandise on ebay, high buyer satisfaction, but booted off.
They had been anonymizing, and claimed to have tried everything to get back on again.
They said in a fairly short time, ebay would just boot them off again without warning.

The consensus seemed to be that they hadn't anonymized properly.
It does seem that ebay has more tech than they want people to know.

SquirrelHead · Post by **SquirrelHead** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 5:21 am

lemur wrote:
junglesmacks wrote:
organizedchaos wrote:(junglesmacks/lemur, i'm talking to you here).

You're in luck! Word on the street is that lemur and I will be doing some creamed corn wrestling before he serves it in his camp.

That's flattering though, thanks.. and see you in the dust!

i will be totally naked during the corn wrestling ...i am very pale.. so bring your sunglasses...some mashed potatoes for eating the corn with, to

Now I will not be able to eat any corn in the desert.

Congrats to all the fellow STEPchildren getting their tickets. I am still hoping my friends get theirs this way. They are sitting out in 12:20 timestampland. Come on BMOG! Drop some extras in the STEP hopper! WOOHOOO

kiss-o-matic · Post by **kiss-o-matic** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:41 pm

Nobody seems to have the straight dope on my voided ticket question though. Hmmm...

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:53 pm

kiss-o-matic wrote:Nobody seems to have the straight dope on my voided ticket question though. Hmmm...

Being as that there is no type of electronics ticket scanning at the gate.. only a visual inspection.. I don't see how a ticket once mailed could be voided.

Counterfeit yes, voided no.

EmilyD · Post by **EmilyD** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 9:12 pm

Hey learned folks...is this the normal number of scalpers on Ebay for this time of year or is this a larger amount than usual?

[link removed]

lucky420 · Post by **lucky420** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 9:21 pm

oh man that is just sad. I hope alot of these big bids are just punking the scalpers...guess we won't really know until after the event. maybe.

SnowBlind · Post by **SnowBlind** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:53 pm

gyre wrote:Interesting site.
I'll have to try that while using a rolling proxy.

I think a proxy isn't going to do much. They basically use the headers that your browser sends up. You would think that a million others have the same headers as you, but since there are more and more headers these days, the combination that your machine sends up get's more and more unique.

(I suppose some proxies could strip headers out, then it would help. But you could also do that on your end. The act of proxing is not going to defend against this identification).

BBadger · Post by **BBadger** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:33 am

EmilyD wrote:Hey learned folks...is this the normal number of scalpers on Ebay for this time of year or is this a larger amount than usual?

[link removed]

Tickets weren't sold out last year by this time, and last year was the first year that non-inter-tier scalping was viable, so any amount would be more than "usual."

Post by **trilobyte** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:09 am

@EmilyD - considering that there are 53K tickets in circulation, it's an incredibly low number (comparing against other 'hot ticket' events). Last year's event is tough to measure against (as Bbadger mentioned) - tickets were only 'sold out' for 5 weeks, whereas this year the event has been essentially sold out for more than 5 months (so far). So far from the weekly tracking I've been doing the signs are encouraging, still no evidence of the 'scalpergeddon' scenario that many claimed we would be facing.

junglesmacks · Post by **junglesmacks** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 5:56 am

trilobyte wrote:@EmilyD - considering that there are 53K tickets in circulation, it's an incredibly low number (comparing against other 'hot ticket' events).

At the moment, there are 158 ticket listings between SH and Ebay. Roughly half are for 1 ticket, the other half for 2 tickets. For the sake of quick math, we'll figure an average of 1.5 tickets per listing. That would put it at 237 tickets up for public scalping between the two major sites.

53k tickets were up to be mailed out between pre-sale, lottery and direct distribution. Sure, not all have been mailed.. but many of those listings don't have hard tickets, either. I don't see much of a huge jump in listings about to happen as sellers know that NOW is the time to sell. As we get closer to the burn, prices only go down. This is peak time right now.

That means that 0.44% of total tickets are up for public scalping. That's less than one half of one percent.

Far, FAR less than the 10%-20%-30% that some people were screaming about previously..

vargaso · Post by **vargaso** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 7:34 am

True, that is a very low number of tickets being scalped, which means the worst is true: a buttload of people want to go to Burning Man now.

pwornama · Post by **pwornama** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 10:54 am

vargaso wrote:True, that is a very low number of tickets being scalped, which means the worst is true: a buttload of people want to go to Burning Man now.

I want to be within the buttload...come on STEP provide...

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