When you’re moving fast and eager to secure a seat, it’s easy to skip the checks you’d normally make. Here are seven ways to protect yourself when buying tickets online, and how StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee is built to cover you automatically.
The presale sells out in minutes. The show gets announced and demand spikes overnight. Suddenly you’re hunting for tickets, desperate to see your favorite artist. This situation, where so many fans want in and there are only so many tickets available for the show, is where online scams can thrive. Read on for seven ways you can protect yourself when buying tickets online.
1. Buy from a safe, verified platform.
There’s an important difference between a marketplace and a listing. When it comes to protecting yourself, a social media post, a group chat, or a forum thread where someone’s reselling a ticket isn’t a real marketplace — it’s a transaction based entirely on trusting a stranger. There’s no fraud detection behind it and no recourse if the seller disappears after you pay them or the ticket doesn’t work.
This is the setup behind one of the most common ticket scams: a seller posts a screenshot of a ticket, takes payment through a peer-to-peer app, and either never delivers or sends a duplicate that’s already been sold to someone else. Peer-to-peer payment apps generally aren’t designed to reverse a transaction once it’s sent, so if the ticket turns out to be fake, you typically can’t recover your money.
This is exactly why StubHub exists as a safe, verified platform: to get you into the events you love with the protection that comes with StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee. It’s automatically included with every order — not an add-on or a paid upgrade. It guarantees your tickets will arrive in time, they’ll be authentic and valid for entry, and in the rare instance something goes wrong, you’ll receive comparable replacement tickets or a full refund.
If an event is canceled outright and not rescheduled, you’re refunded as well. Coverage starts the moment you check out and lasts until you’re through the gate. Those kinds of protections just don’t exist on a classifieds page or a forum.
2. Pay with a credit card, not a wire transfer, gift card, or payment app.
How you pay for a ticket matters nearly as much as who you’re buying it from. The FTC has cautioned that wire transfers, gift cards, and peer-to-peer payment apps offer little to no path to recover funds if a transaction goes wrong, since those methods weren’t built with buyer disputes in mind. Credit cards work differently. In the U.S., credit card holders have real recourse against fraudulent or unauthorized charges, a level of protection that cash apps and wire transfers don’t offer.
On StubHub, you’ll never be asked to send money through a peer-to-peer app or wire cash directly. If a seller is steering you away from a traceable payment method on social media, treat that as a clear warning sign.
Purchasing through a standard checkout on a secure platform like StubHub means that fraud detection is built into the transaction. Payment security isn’t something you have to verify yourself. It’s core to how the sale works.
3. Check who you’re buying from before you commit.
It’s a step that’s easy to skip, but it’s one of the most effective things you can do before purchasing a ticket. Double-check the seller to make sure they’re legitimate.
This is where a platform that puts fans first makes a meaningful difference. On StubHub, our marketplace is built for fans. Sellers are required to have their tickets in hand, or be officially allocated them, before they’re permitted to list. Speculative or “ghost ticketing” — listing tickets a seller doesn’t yet possess — is prohibited. Sellers who fail to deliver valid tickets face real consequences, from fines up to a permanent ban, and they aren’t paid until after the event takes place. Instead of investigating an individual seller yourself, the platform has already done that work.
4. Watch for “exclusive” links, unusual offers and prices that don’t add up.
Online scams often rely on psychological pressure as much as financial deception. Claims like “secret presale access,” or unusual offers that include things like a private meet-and-greet with the artist or prices that are simply too good to be true, are tactics designed to entice buyers to skip the steps they’d normally take. Do your research about what a venue or artist might actually be offering to attendees before you assume a deal is real.
5. Look for the small but important signs of a secure purchase.
Not every fraudulent ticket sale is an obvious scam — many are simply slightly off. Avoid ticket links from unsolicited emails or texts, since creating a web address that closely mimics a legitimate platform is a common scammer tactic.
Before entering any payment information, take a moment to confirm the site is genuinely the one you intend to use, not a close copy with a subtle typo or an extra word inserted into the URL. It’s a quick check, but one that helps avoid convincing fakes.
6. Lock down your accounts and personal information.
Buying safely isn’t just about the transaction itself — it’s also about protecting your personal and financial information before, during, and after. Security experts point to a few habits that make the biggest difference: use a unique password for accounts tied to payment methods, turn on two-factor authentication wherever it’s offered, and be wary of any email or text asking you to “verify your account” or “confirm a purchase” by clicking a link and logging in.
Phishing attempts can be especially common around high-demand ticket drops, since scammers know fans are actively checking email and text alerts for presale codes and on-sale reminders. A message that looks like it’s from a ticketing platform but asks for login credentials, personal information, or arrives from an unfamiliar address deserves a second look before you click anything.
7. Know your coverage before you buy, not during the chaos.
This is a step many buyers overlook, and can make a big difference for your tickets: review what’s covered before buying, not while standing outside a venue trying to sort out a problem in real time.
What qualifies for a refund? What doesn’t? What happens if an event is postponed rather than canceled?
With StubHub’s FanProtect, the coverage is clearly defined. At a high level, FanProtect includes four core guarantees:
- Your tickets will arrive on time.
- Your tickets will be authentic and valid for entry.
- If there’s a problem, you’ll receive tickets that are comparable, or your money back.
- If the event is canceled and not rescheduled, you’ll be refunded.
Understanding this in advance means there are no surprises mid-transaction, or worse, mid-line at the gate.
What to Do If You Think You’ve Been Scammed
Even careful buyers can run into a bad situation, so it’s worth knowing the right moves if something feels off, whether that’s before, during, or after a purchase.
Act fast and document everything. If a ticket doesn’t scan, a barcode looks wrong, or a seller goes quiet after payment, save the evidence right away — screenshots of the listing and any messages, confirmation emails, and a photo of the error at the gate if it happens there. Then contact the seller or platform immediately.
On StubHub, the Customer Care team is standing by 24/7 to assist with issues that might come up.
Report it to the FTC. If you were scammed on social media, a fake website, or a forum, filing a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov helps the agency track scam trends and take action against repeat offenders, even if it doesn’t directly recover your money.
Change your passwords if you clicked any suspicious links. If the scam involved logging into a fake site or clicking a phishing link, update your password on the real account immediately and turn on two-factor authentication if it isn’t already active.
The Takeaway: The Platform is the Protection.
StubHub’s platform prevents fraud and provides a refund as a backstop if an issue does arise. That peace of mind can’t be found while buying tickets through an unverified listing or group chat. FanProtect isn’t something buyers have to activate or qualify for; it’s automatically included with every order, and it applies from the moment of purchase through entry to the event. Paired with smart habits described above like paying with a credit card, verifying the website, securing your accounts, and taking a second look at an offer that seems too good to be true, buyers aren’t just hoping the transaction goes smoothly. They’re covered if it doesn’t.
That’s the real difference between buying a ticket online and buying one with confidence.