Scammed at Blizzard Beach!

[Laugh O. Grams]

I must be having a "duh, what?" moment because I don't understand why the add-on tickets didn't work for admission.


***Off to shake the cobwebs from my brain now.***

As an AP holder for easily a decade, I really don't know how regular admission tickets with add-ons work. They look like regular park tickets. All I know is that when I tried to enter the park, the machine wouldn't take the pass. Maybe someone here knows?

 

[a1tinkfans]

sorry that happened to you...sad but more and more people are quite inventive to make a buck. Too bad they can't use that same energy to get a job and be be decent human beings....A good reminder, as you said to listen to that little voice in your head and go with your gut. But we're human and like most decent people we try and believe that people around us are good too, unfortunately, they're not sometimes.
Great to hear Disney stepped up to the plate.....it is a Magical place after all

Thank you for the warning!
I believe in KARMA .....so they're gonna get a nice Bite in the ***!

 

[dnoyes]

The thing is if it were a REAL add on ticket it should have still got you in the water park. It shouldn't matter who used it. I'm not so sure Disney told you everything they knew about the tickets and may have wanted to keep them for their own investigation.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I work at Typhoon Lagoon Guest Services and I have never heard of an "add-on" ticket. If you upgrade a base (or hopper) MYW ticket to add WPF&M there are two possibilities.

One is if you have a KTTW as your ticket it is only changed in the computer and you keep the same KTTW.

If you have the Tyvek tickets we print you a new ticket with which is a continuation of your old ticket plus the new entitlements added and we will keep the old tickets. We have to stamp them "VOID" and turn them in with our other paperwork when we bank out at the end of the day.

What they could have done was had some used one day waterpark tickets and sold them as new. There is no way you can look at a ticket and tell whether or not it has been used and what remains on it. It can only be read at a ticketing terminal.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

Please don't get mad at me OP, but I don't think they were scamming you. I can't see any scammer taking a risk and entering the park.

It would be very easy to find them in the park, or at least watch the exit for them. Plus they don't know how you would react after being scammed.

I think it might have been an innocent mistake on their part. A lot of DIS veterans seem to be confused with the how the ticketing system works.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

Please don't get mad at me OP, but I don't think they were scamming you. I can't see any scammer taking a risk and entering the park.

It would be very easy to find them in the park, or at least watch the exit for them. Plus they don't know how you would react after being scammed.

I think it might have been an innocent mistake on their part. A lot of DIS veterans seem to be confused with the how the ticketing system works.

No worries. I considered that scenario and ran it by the security manager, but we both wondered, why would they come up with the "Oh no! We bought 4 tickets out of this machine and only need 2!!" story? Also, although my wife thought she saw them entering the park, she didn't follow them to the gate to actually watch them walk through the turnstile. Remember, we still had to turn back to the kiosk to purchase our kids tickets. There's a good chance they were smarter then we thought and they only walked toward the entrance after the transaction, only to turn away when we weren't looking, to complete the ruse.

All that being said, I think the lesson out of all of this is to not buy park tickets from 3rd party strangers. If someone needs your help in unloading accidentally purchased tickets, don't pull out your wallet, send them to Guest Services for a refund.

 

[Veronica Lodge]

The whole thing still sounds odd to me. If your wife saw the so-called scammers actually go into the park, then maybe, just maybe, they weren't really trying to scam you. Maybe they really were in a pickle after having acidentally purchased 2 extra tickets. I personally would have pointed them in the direction of guest services and wished them luck (since I very rarely carry more than $20 cash anyway), but I think it is kind of presumptuous to assume they were a couple of greedy scammers waiting to pounce on the first patsy that drifted by. Most scammers won't hang around and go into the park, IYKWIM. They are generally gone as soon as they get the cash.

 

[4greatboys]

We went to SW once in San Antonio and a lady approached us and said she had 2 comp tickets she won and wondered if we wanted to buy them from her for less than what we would pay for park tickets. I think she was asking $20 per ticket. I said yes and I would pay her once we got inside the gate.

She gave me the tickets we went through the gates then I turned around and handed her the money for the tickets. Luckily for everyone invovled they were good tickets.

 

[rgf207]

Please don't get mad at me OP, but I don't think they were scamming you. I can't see any scammer taking a risk and entering the park.

It would be very easy to find them in the park, or at least watch the exit for them. Plus they don't know how you would react after being scammed.

I think it might have been an innocent mistake on their part. A lot of DIS veterans seem to be confused with the how the ticketing system works.

The whole thing still sounds odd to me. If your wife saw the so-called scammers actually go into the park, then maybe, just maybe, they weren't really trying to scam you. Maybe they really were in a pickle after having acidentally purchased 2 extra tickets. I personally would have pointed them in the direction of guest services and wished them luck (since I very rarely carry more than $20 cash anyway), but I think it is kind of presumptuous to assume they were a couple of greedy scammers waiting to pounce on the first patsy that drifted by. Most scammers won't hang around and go into the park, IYKWIM. They are generally gone as soon as they get the cash.

I was thinking the same thing but the OP said that that when he was going to buy tickets at the machine, the scammers said they had accidently purchased 4 tickets instead of 2. That was an obvious lie since the tickets were no good and would have never come out of those machines.

 

[lyzziesmom]

I'd guess with the water park add-on you are issued two tickets, one for the theme parks and another just for water parks. This what they sold you.

Good theory, but the add-ons are not on a seperate ticket. They are "entitlements" that are added onto the base ticket, on the same ticket media. Sort of how a 10-day ticket doesn't look any different from a 3-day ticket, and if you then add park hoppers that privilege is just encoded onto the ticket. Same with the water park admissions, they are encoded onto the base ticket and the system keeps track of how many admissions you've used.

I have no idea what kind of tickets those people sold the OP but I have to agree with a PP that Disney probably just said "add-on" or maybe even something else (I think the OP later said he wasn't sure if that was the term the CM used) and wanted to keep the tickets so they could check it out later.

After reading this, I can see why some people are distrustful of others trying to unload extra fastpasses, if they are not familiar with the system I suppose I could see how they might think they are getting scammed.

I hope those scammers were caught. Bottom line is: Don't trust anyone.

 

[mfd25wife]

Were the tickets rejected when you had to put your finger on the scanner? I was in a wheelchair every day we went to the parks. I couldn't reach the scanner so had not put my finger on it the entire time days we had been at the parks. The CM always put my KTTW pass in and over-rode it or something. The last night we were at WDW, we were trying to get to Fantasmic and did not get a wheelchair until we were inside. Security at the gate was rude because the ticket had been used, but there was no record of my finger being scanned. We went through the explaination with him, but he treated us like we were lying. I was wearing a c-collar and had cuts on my arms so I definitely looked like an injured person. DH's had been scanned, so you would think he would have not been rude and acted like we were lying about it. He finally let us through, so it worked out. I wondered if that was what the cast member was talking about in your case. The ticket had been used, but the scan didn't match?

 

[kaytieeldr]

I was thinking the same thing but the OP said that that when he was going to buy tickets at the machine, the scammers said they had accidently purchased 4 tickets instead of 2. That was an obvious lie since the tickets were no good and would have never come out of those machines.

I dunno... how do you 'accidentally' purchase twice as many tickets as you intended?

 

[rgf207]

I dunno... how do you 'accidentally' purchase twice as many tickets as you intended?

exactly which is why they were scammers and the tickets were not purchased out of those machines. If they actually thought the tickets were legit, they would not have made up the story about purchasing too many tickets out of the machine.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

I dunno... how do you 'accidentally' purchase twice as many tickets as you intended?

I typically like believing the best in all people as well, so I appreciate your angle. However, their story was, they hit the 4 quantity button on the touchscreen inadvertently when they should have hit 2, then didn't realize the discrepancy until the tickets came out of the machine. In the end, both the CM at the entrance and Disney security confirmed that the tickets were useless, which wouldn't have been the case of the tickets had just popped out of the machine as the couple stated.

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

Were the tickets rejected when you had to put your finger on the scanner? I was in a wheelchair every day we went to the parks. I couldn't reach the scanner so had not put my finger on it the entire time days we had been at the parks. The CM always put my KTTW pass in and over-rode it or something. The last night we were at WDW, we were trying to get to Fantasmic and did not get a wheelchair until we were inside. Security at the gate was rude because the ticket had been used, but there was no record of my finger being scanned. We went through the explaination with him, but he treated us like we were lying. I was wearing a c-collar and had cuts on my arms so I definitely looked like an injured person. DH's had been scanned, so you would think he would have not been rude and acted like we were lying about it. He finally let us through, so it worked out. I wondered if that was what the cast member was talking about in your case. The ticket had been used, but the scan didn't match?

We didn't even get as far as the finger scanner. I put the ticket in and it popped out the other side as a dud.

 

[ols386]

Wow, now that's an interesting experience. Thanks for the warning. I hear what you're saying about being at WDW (or anywhere, I suppose).....always have to be aware that there may be someone lurking nearby to scam you.

Hope you had a great trip anyway!!

 

[disney junky]

No worries. I considered that scenario and ran it by the security manager, but we both wondered, why would they come up with the "Oh no! We bought 4 tickets out of this machine and only need 2!!" story? Also, although my wife thought she saw them entering the park, she didn't follow them to the gate to actually watch them walk through the turnstile. Remember, we still had to turn back to the kiosk to purchase our kids tickets. There's a good chance they were smarter then we thought and they only walked toward the entrance after the transaction, only to turn away when we weren't looking, to complete the ruse.

All that being said, I think the lesson out of all of this is to not buy park tickets from 3rd party strangers. If someone needs your help in unloading accidentally purchased tickets, don't pull out your wallet, send them to Guest Services for a refund.

love your picture...

 

[inkkognito]

I guess this explains the spooked people at Universal. I havew a Premier Pass which is good for free valet parking, as does DH. He uses his for our car, and I use mine for whovever is behind us. Usually people are happy because it's a $20 value, but once the people acted as though I was trying to steal their car or something. I wonder if they had encountered other scammers previously. Oh well, the people behind them were more than happy to accept. When we go to SeaWorld for the morning and leave early, I use my Platinum pass to get a discount for random people buying tickets. Haven't ever had anyone turn that down (the savings is $10 to $20 a head, depending on whatever special they're running at the time).