My friends (3) and I decided to go to a concert together that had presale for the following year. Y’all know Ticketmaster- I got a presale code, waited in queue, raced for my life, put my credit card down, and got us tickets. At this time, 2 of them sent me the money for their portion.
A month before the concert, I asked them if they’d still like to go, or if I should sell the tickets. At this time, this artist was getting a lot of traction for their first album, selling out venues, so it wouldn’t be a problem to sell them. They say they’re all super excited to go and they can’t wait. I get pumped up to go.
Flash forward 10 days before the concert, they say that they changed their mind and don’t want to go, say that if I still want to, I can still go with someone else with one of the tickets (from the friend that hadn’t given me money?) and ask me to sell their tickets (2 of them that had given me money). I’m able to sell the tickets pretty easily, for more than what I originally paid for them on Ticketmaster (an extra $150 per ticket). I ask some of my other friends for advice- should I send them all the money or should I keep the profit? I got a resounding “yes, it’s your money, you did all the work” answer from everyone I spoke to, so I felt good about keeping the profit.
So, after the concert, I sent back the amount of money they paid me for their tickets. They then text me asking for “the rest of the money”, insinuating that the profit was theirs. I explained, I bought the tickets, put down my card, and they flaked on me (potentially screwing me from seeing the concert), so I thought I would keep the profit. Suddenly, they’re calling me a bad friend, telling people I stole from them, and saying they never want to speak to me again.
Am I the asshole?
EDIT- to save friendship, I split the profit 3 ways with them and apologized for the miscommunication, but they are still telling people this story and that I’m a bad friend.
NTA.
They got a full refund, not a stock option. You handled the presale, the risk, and the resale. If the tickets didn’t sell, you wouldn’t be covering the loss. Profit comes with risk, not vibes.
This is the most AI comment I’ve ever seen. It’s not wrong, it’s just AI.
Profit comes with risk, not vibes.
I would totally have given them exactly what they had invested and kept the rest for my time and energy.
I mean, YTA for jacking up the ticket price for profit from other buyers in the first place. You only owe your friends what they paid, so NTA for that part. But $150 more? Really? I get wanting to recoup from the friend that didn’t pay, and increasing a bit to cover service fees & all but ridiculously high resale prices are part of the problem with shows and YTA for being a part of that problem.
YTA for selling the tickets for $150 more each – you’re contributing to the Ticketmaster problems.
THIS.
People love to blame Ticketmaster for high prices then pull this shit. Fuck greedy resellers.
Individuals buying tickets with every intention of going then selling the tickets at the going rate is not what’s driving high prices.
People love to blame ticketmaster because IT’S THEIR FAULT. If ticketmaster wouldn’t let people resell for more than face value or the government restricted it this would go away.
The idea that individuals should sell at face value so scalpers who are constantly looking for cheap tickets can make the profit themselves doesn’t change anything for the better.
Reselling for market demand isn’t the problem. Buying to all tickets wholesale with the intention of doing demand + price is the problem.
NTA. They did absolutely nothing and got their money back.
If you had to sell it for a loss, would they have paid you the difference?
What if you couldn’t sell it at all?
What about your time? Do they not feel like you should be compensated for the risk you took? What exactly did they do to deserve the profit?
100% NTA.
Why did you tell anyone you made a profit? All you needed to say was you sold them
“I got a refund”
Honestly, NTA. I find it a bit suspicious they knew how much the tickets were worth and not sticking to a long planned event because you don’t feel like it almost always makes you the ahole. It sounds a lot like they knew how much the tickets would be worth if they waited long enough and thought that they could simply leave all the work (and risk) to you.