Half Off Theme park tickets,,,

[rowan1813]

I've had a reply from Disney to my email I sent them regarding this company. Whilst it was a very generic 'thank you for your information' they did say they will pass all information onto the relevant leadership team.

Hopefully these people get busted and shut down.

That's great!! Thank you miss potatohead for sending an email to Disney! Hopefully Disney will be able to contact FB and get the page shut down at the very least. That will definitely cut into their consumer traffic. I hope that Disney will keep checking tickets and IDs on a regular basis and not just spot-checking. If it is enforced regularly, then that will make it just that much harder for these people to get away with scamming people.

I received the usual customary, "We have received your email and will get back to you shortly" email and when I get a response, I'll post it here. Keep up the emails to Disney and reporting the page to FB!!

 

[Maleficent53]

I haven't read the whole thread so i'm sorry if someone already brought this up however I did notice someone ask when DL was going to the finger scanner thing like they have at WDW. Well I'm a WDW vet, go there all the time, and they have the finger scanner thing. However regardless there are booths everyplace around Orlando selling "discount WDW tickets" that you have to "return" after you use them, (rented tickets) and these places will buy your unused tickets if you have days left to resell. Both of course are against WDW policy. I don't understand how a person can use someone else's ticket and have it WORK considering they HAVE the finger scanners at all the parks. Makes me think there finger scanners simply don't work and are there for show, how else could these businesses exist? Also ... how come WDW dosen't get these ticket "renters" put out of business and/or arrested? They sell right out in the open, they don't hide anything, and are at the same locations year round? If people can't use the tickets they "rent" why do they exist? Very confusing!

If you do a google search you will find many articles such as this one -
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...0110302_1_theme-park-tickets-seaworld-orlando
The police to regularly arrest people in Florida associated with reselling tickets, but just like drug dealers and other nefarious types, take one down and another surfaces. Unfortunately the police cannot keep up with it, and because people see the booths all over, they think it is okay.....

 

[pixiewings71]

Just a quick note, I didn't read all 6 pages. I just wanted to say when DBF and DD12 had park hoppers last month they had their names printed right on the ticket.

 

[MyYearWithTheMouse]

Just a quick note, I didn't read all 6 pages. I just wanted to say when DBF and DD12 had park hoppers last month they had their names printed right on the ticket.

Awesome! Was it printed on the ticket from the computer, or written in?

 

[korg]

My wife and I are getting CityPass tickets for our California trip coming at the end of the month. (Can't wait) I wonder how that would work in regard to printed names on the Disney passes? Hmmmmmmm (I believe we show our city pass tickets at the gate and get our 3 day DL hopper tickets) Still, printed names are not a bad way to stop reselling of unused days.

 

[korg]

If you do a google search you will find many articles such as this one -
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...0110302_1_theme-park-tickets-seaworld-orlando
The police to regularly arrest people in Florida associated with reselling tickets, but just like drug dealers and other nefarious types, take one down and another surfaces. Unfortunately the police cannot keep up with it, and because people see the booths all over, they think it is okay.....

I will google it, thanks for the suggestion. The thing that amazes me are the large amounts of perminant locations in Florida that do this and advertise they do it right out in the open. ("We buy your WDW tickets with unused days for cash!") It's not some dude with a push cart watching out for the cops, they are long established perminant booths with big signs advertising what they do.

ANYWAY i'll do the goggle search because this blows my mind.

update; I just did a google search, wow very interesting problem they have there. I wonder how many people buy these tickets and get screwed and how many get away with it? And i wonder if the ticket "renters" return the money to the buyers if the ticket doesn't work? Still, my last WDW visit was in 2010 and there was a booth at every block it seemed selling and buying "unused days." Still amazes me how they break the law right out in the open and aren't afraid of being arrested. (Yeah a few have been arrested it seems but most haven't) Is this a big problem in California or is it just a problem in Florida?

 

[pixiewings71]

Awesome! Was it printed on the ticket from the computer, or written in?

It was computer generated.

 

[korg]

It was computer generated.

Interesting, again I wonder how they'll do that with things like CityPass?

 

[MyYearWithTheMouse]

Still amazes me how they break the law right out in the open and aren't afraid of being arrested. (Yeah a few have been arrested it seems but most haven't) Is this a big problem in California or is it just a problem in Florida?

It's not out in the open, because they're either on Disney property or Anaheim city property and there's not a lot of open space in either one. However, they do advertise quite brazenly on FB, Craigslist, and Ebay and many operate out of actual street addresses (one is located inside a gas station convenience store, for example).

Pixiewings71, I'm wondering if this is the new policy. I hope so!

 

[pixiewings71]

Interesting, again I wonder how they'll do that with things like CityPass?

I don't know, I don't know how the City Pass works, we've never used it.

It's not out in the open, because they're either on Disney property or Anaheim city property and there's not a lot of open space in either one. However, they do advertise quite brazenly on FB, Craigslist, and Ebay and many operate out of actual street addresses (one is located inside a gas station convenience store, for example).

Pixiewings71, I'm wondering if this is the new policy. I hope so!

I hope so, everyone who had a park ticket in our group had their name on their ticket. DD16 and I have APs but the other 8 people had hoppers (we had 1 who was 2 so she didn't have a ticket), it made it easy when giving out tickets to get FP's or for going back to the room for a break.

 

[Brian Noble]

I have heard the biometric (fingerprint) scanners are not very accurate.

They aren't quite exactly recording fingerprints. The first time the ticket is used, the scanner uses the contours of the fingerprint to compute something else, and the result of that computation is then stored. When the ticket is re-used, the computation is performed again, and matched against the stored result. If the results match, the turnstile unlocks. If the results don't match, it doesn't.

In WDW's system, there are at least three reasons why someone "borrowing" a ticket might not be detected:

1: Tickets bought together in a single transaction directly from Disney are "grouped"---a holder of any of those tickets only needs to match *one of* the computed results from teh set. That way if Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary each grab each others' tickets in the morning, they won't hold up the line.

2: During peak entrance periods, the scanners are sometimes shut off to expedite entrance. The little blue light still flashes, but the turnstile unlocks immediately rather than after a noticeable delay. WDW veterans can probably tell the difference by watching.

3: Because the computation is an abstract of the fingerprint, and lots of information is thrown away, it is possible to have a "false positive"---where two different fingerprints happen to compute to the same result. I don't think I've ever seen hard numbers about the false positive rate, but even if it was 1 in 10,000, the chances that you sold your ticket to someone who happened to match you are low enough that it is probably a sufficient deterrent.

But, the WDW areas of the DIS have a few Ticketing Cast Members who post on them, and they report that the system does in fact catch people, and not infrequently.

 

[pixiewings71]

DBF has a biometric hand scanner at work, when he clocks in every morning he does it by hand scan.

 

[bcla]

My wife and I are getting CityPass tickets for our California trip coming at the end of the month. (Can't wait) I wonder how that would work in regard to printed names on the Disney passes? Hmmmmmmm (I believe we show our city pass tickets at the gate and get our 3 day DL hopper tickets) Still, printed names are not a bad way to stop reselling of unused days.

Of course the Southern California CityPass comes in the form of a gift card like piece of plastic with a bar code on the back and without any kind of magnetic strip. This is not the actual ticket used at Disneyland. It was the ticket used to get into Universal and SeaWorld. Neither issued any other kind of ticket or receipt upon entry, since it was only valid for one day.

A little late, but as of late Nov 2012, for someone with CityPass, the gate issues a ticket that's printed with something like "3-Day Park Hopper CityPass" and a place to print the name with a pen. We were specifically handed a fine-tipped permanent marker to write our names down, as well as being asked to show ID then and every time we reentered, with or without a hand stamp.

Personally I think writing down a name in permanent ink is going to make it tough for the rental brokers to attempt to reuse them. Of course the machine printed name is even worse. However, a few seem to have gone out of business, but others are trying new ways to get around it.

 

[bcla]

They aren't quite exactly recording fingerprints. The first time the ticket is used, the scanner uses the contours of the fingerprint to compute something else, and the result of that computation is then stored. When the ticket is re-used, the computation is performed again, and matched against the stored result. If the results match, the turnstile unlocks. If the results don't match, it doesn't.

I know a little something about fingerprint recognition from a previous job. I'm not an expert, but I've been around enough of my coworkers to understand the basics.

Most of the software out there doesn't actually store the actual fingerprint image. Most of the equipment used does capture an image of a fingerprint. However, what you typically see in commercial usage isn't the super expensive law enforcement machines that capture entire fingerprints and attempt to make exact matches. They're probably only capturing the center of the print. All of this is typically reduced to a series of "minutiae" or features. The locations and rotation of these minutiae are usually what would be stored in a database and not an image (although it could be stored).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint_recognition#Minutia_features

So what you end up with is like a key. Given how simplified it is, it may be more like a mechanical key. If you've got something like a Schlage SC1, there are only a finite number of combinations. However, you've only got to match the key to the individual lock you're trying to open. I've bought locks at Home Depot, and typical boxes carry several locksets that are keyed alike (there will be a sticker with a code allowing one to buy matching sets so that only one key is needed for a series of locks). Maybe someone in the same area will have the same key, but it won't matter unless they know where you live. What they've got at WDW is a system that pulls up the number of the barcode and matches the "key" to the set of information in their database that was acquired when the user first used the ticket.

Here's an image showing one kind of fingerprint recognition. This one only appears to calculate "bifurcations" (where two ridges merge into one) as boxes with the rotation in the direction of the single ridge. The result for each box is just going to be a coordinate for each minutiae's location and a number representing the angle. When it comes time to validate, only the coordinates and rotations will likely be available in the database.

 

[Dani92663]

Unfortunately there are many sites out there. I have posted on the FB page referenced here (I just checked and my comments are deleted!), and also on one called DANI'S DECADENT DEALS that is promoting the halfprice site. As we know, there are people who are willing to walk on the edge to save a few bucks (and I know it can be a substantial amount if you have a family to buy for). After all, don't most of us look for ways to save money to feed our Disney fix?

I would like to hear that Disney is ID checking most people going thru the gates - a little of that would slow down their business alot. If tickets are truly non-transferable then Disney needs to be the enforcement.

Just an FYI, the reason your quote on quote "comments" were deleted from my page was because the person that posted the deal that I found out was inaccurate was removed because the post was inaccurate. I am a Disney Pass holder. I have been an annual passholder for 10 years and on Dani's Decadent Deals, I help people save money. If someone shares a deal with me, I am more than happy to share it with the public, but if it is not a real deal, I remove it right away as I did with this one. I agree that Disney should always check for real passes...There are so many people that try to get away with bogus ones.

 

[larina]

Just an FYI, the reason your quote on quote "comments" were deleted from my page was because the person that posted the deal that I found out was inaccurate was removed because the post was inaccurate. I am a Disney Pass holder. I have been an annual passholder for 10 years and on Dani's Decadent Deals, I help people save money. If someone shares a deal with me, I am more than happy to share it with the public, but if it is not a real deal, I remove it right away as I did with this one. I agree that Disney should always check for real passes...There are so many people that try to get away with bogus ones.

Hmmm, last post here was almost a year ago. Why start this up again?

 

[jojorunnr]

Hmmm, last post here was almost a year ago. Why start this up again?

I dont know what brings a thread back to life, but I am curious if anyone has used this site recently?

So anyone use Half off theme parks .com during 2013 holiday time?