Ticket Fraud Assistance

[jasonwentcrazy]

After getting hustled by a scammer via a Will Call Transfer I've been in very frequent contact with others who were scammed in the same way by the same person. The list of people scammed by this same person has grown to at least six other people and I cannot imagine that there aren't a whole lot more out there we've yet to find. Together we've amassed a pretty substantial cache of documentation that proves all of this beyond any doubt at all.

A few of us have launched disputes against the seller of the tickets with PayPal. The outcome of each of these disputes [all with the same seller and the same circumstances] was that more information was required in some way.

While I realize that PayPal issues are certainly not something that Burning Man has time to address and it's obviously not their responsibility even if time wasn't a factor. I would, however, hope that someone at the BM offices was available to assist us with this. Sure, it'd be cool for everyone to get their money back from the guy but that's almost a secondary issue for us. The bigger point is that we'd all like to see that this scammer was prevented from doing this same thing in the future.

All emails sent to [email protected] [as well as tickets@] have had no response beyond the auto-response message of "We received your inquiry and will get back to you as soon as we can. We strive to reply to ticket support inquiries within 24 hours, but it can take a little longer depending on the time and day the inquiry is sent." It's been a couple of weeks and I was wondering if there is something else I/we can do as some of this is sort of time sensitive?

[GreyCoyote]

Jason, I may be speaking out of turn, but my guess is that BM has pretty well de-staffed once the burn is over. Instead of being dozens of seasonal folks and volunteers minding those email addresses, there may be just one or two now. The big push is pretty much over for ticketing and the like.

Keep trying. Make some noise and someone will notice you eventually. You might also try calling and see if you can get someone that way. Whatever, don't stop trying.

[Sham]

All through the ticket sales process, there were warnings given (such as in my signature below) about people making private deals. It's going to be difficult for the org to step in the middle of a transaction between two private parties.
Personally, I have always been a fan of hard tickets and buying them locally. When you pick up the tickets you pay the cash.
I was skeptical of many of the ticket offers that were being made, since many people would respond, and money could be requested from ALL of them. This is where some sort of guaranteed payment protection is so important.
No matter how many warnings were given, people still were somewhat sloppy (or desperate) and lost money in their transactions.

[theCryptofishist]

We aren't really good sources of information on whom to contact at the burning man project. We'll make up answers, because we want to help, and we'll believe what we say, but I don't know that we'll actually come up with something that works.

[Joeln]

All through the ticket sales process, there were warning given (such as in my signature below) about people making private deals. It's going to be difficult for the org to step in the middle of a transaction between two private parties.
Personally, I have always been a fan of hard tickets and buying them locally. When you pick up the tickets you pay the cash.
I was skeptical of many of the ticket offers that were being made, since many people would respond, and money could be requested from ALL of them. This is where some sort of guaranteed payment protection is so important.
No matter how many warnings were given, people still were somewhat sloppy (or desperate) and lost money in their transactions.

I don't get the sense that the OP wants the org to "step in the middle", I think OP would be delighted to merely get more information / documentation to support their claim.

[trilobyte]

I'm sorry, but it sounds like you've grossly misunderstood what the fraud@ address is for. I'll clarify what it is for, and then close up this thread.

Burning Man will absolutely not get involved in your dispute or provide you with assistance with your complaints. Burning Man is also unable to file criminal complaints on your behalf - you're the one who needs to contact the authorities and get that ball rolling. The [email protected] address is intended for reporting the details and case numbers of ticket fraud criminal investigations. Burning Man does not provide ticket verification services, and Burning Man does not have an investigative team to help you resolve disputes or get refunds on third party ticket sales.

If you have not already done so, you (and the other victims) should contact the authorities immediately and file a criminal complaint. Once you have a case number, if your previous messages did not already include it you should include those details. It's unfortunately too late to be able to include any warnings to other burners for the 2014 season, but there may be some useful information that could be used in our messaging for next year.