95Crash Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Has anyone ever been blocked from using Ticketmaster's website? It just happened to me twice within the last few days. Basically what happens is if you search for tickets too many times without making a purchase, TM will block your IP address for 24 hours -- supposedly because you are assumed to be a scalper. Normally I would think that is a good thing. But the problem is for really hot-ticket concerts, many times TM doesn't offer you the best seats on your initial search. You need to keep searching multiple times daily, particularly as the date of the event gets nearer; it is common knowledge that quite often very good seats to previously sold-out shows get released within a week or two before the show. But if you search too often, TM will block you for 24 hours. I tried looking around online to find out specifically how many times one can search on TM without being blocked. Apparently TM is very close-lipped about this and doesn't want anyone to know how they decide who gets blocked and who doesn't. Now I'm hesitant to keep looking for the tickets I want, for fear of being blocked again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowdyFan42 Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Wow, you had to have been doing a lot of searching, then. I've done my fair share of pounding on their site and never had any problems like that, unless this is something they just recently put into practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95Crash Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Wow, you had to have been doing a lot of searching, then. I've done my fair share of pounding on their site and never had any problems like that, unless this is something they just recently put into practice. I admit I did a lot of searching -- I just don't know how much exactly. I mean, it wasn't like I searched nonstop for an hour straight. I wonder how many searches can anyone do in an hour -- 20? 30? 40? Anyway, I had good reason to keep searching. The concert had been pretty much sold out for a few weeks. All that would pop up were tix for behind-the-stage seats. I would check back randomly, day to day, a couple of times an hour. Then the other day, all of a sudden, tix started popping up in the 100s, 200s, 300s sections at MSG. I would always select Best Available Seats. But each time, it gave me a different seat location -- even a couple of times it offered me floor seats, but way in the back of the arena, which I did not want. There was no rhyme or reason to what was being offered to me; that's why I kept searching. I was looking for really close seats. So I would search maybe 10 times in a 25-minute span, then lay off for 45 minutes to an hour, then go back and search three times in a row, then wait maybe 20 minutes, then search another three times, then wait an hour, then search maybe six or seven times, then wait 45 minutes to an hour, then search a few times again, then stop till the next day. I started to repeat that process, but after only maybe six or seven searches, TM wouldn't let me back on. Instead, I got a message that said, "HTTP 403 Forbidden." I had to use Google to find out what was happeneing. If you Google "Ticketmaster blocked me," or "Ticketmaster blocked my IP," or "Ticketmaster blocked my computer," you will see that this has happened to a lot of other people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satans Hockey Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I've had it happen to me because the event I was looking for kept giving me sh!tty seats. I think it's bullsh!t that they do it, it's not like I kept buying tickets over and over. They do unblock you again in 24 hours but it's still bullsh!t but really we shouldn't be surprised, ticketmaster is a horrible company that does nothing but screw people out of their hard earned money. I still hope for the day where ticketmaster gets what they deserve and someone else takes over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95Crash Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 I've had it happen to me because the event I was looking for kept giving me sh!tty seats. I think it's bullsh!t that they do it, it's not like I kept buying tickets over and over. They do unblock you again in 24 hours but it's still bullsh!t but really we shouldn't be surprised, ticketmaster is a horrible company that does nothing but screw people out of their hard earned money. I still hope for the day where ticketmaster gets what they deserve and someone else takes over. Yep, same here. I didn't even buy any tickets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satans Hockey Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Yep, same here. I didn't even buy any tickets. Ditto, my only guess is that it's their system thinking that we are a bot of some sort that just keeps repeatedly buying tickets. I don't know if that is true or not but it's the only logical explanation that I can come up with. If you want to go through the wait on the phone, you could call them up and try to find tickets and I haven't tried this but you might be able to access the ticketmaster mobile app on your phone or try logging on to ticketmaster.com on your phone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoArmySports Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Has anyone ever been blocked from using Ticketmaster's website? It just happened to me twice within the last few days. Basically what happens is if you search for tickets too many times without making a purchase, TM will block your IP address for 24 hours -- supposedly because you are assumed to be a scalper. Normally I would think that is a good thing. But the problem is for really hot-ticket concerts, many times TM doesn't offer you the best seats on your initial search. You need to keep searching multiple times daily, particularly as the date of the event gets nearer; it is common knowledge that quite often very good seats to previously sold-out shows get released within a week or two before the show. But if you search too often, TM will block you for 24 hours. I tried looking around online to find out specifically how many times one can search on TM without being blocked. Apparently TM is very close-lipped about this and doesn't want anyone to know how they decide who gets blocked and who doesn't. Now I'm hesitant to keep looking for the tickets I want, for fear of being blocked again. Were you looking for tickets in different browsers? Ticketmaster also doesn't like that and will block your ip as well. It's a 24 hour block so after that everything goes back to normal tomorrow. I'm assuming you were looking for Devils tickets right? Edited February 17, 2012 by GoArmySports Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95Crash Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Were you looking for tickets in different browsers? Ticketmaster also doesn't like that and will block your ip as well. It's a 24 hour block so after that everything goes back to normal tomorrow. I'm assuming you were looking for Devils tickets right? It happened to me Wednesday night around 10 p.m. on my home PC. As of last night around the same time (10 p.m.-ish), it finally let me back on. I was using the same browser the whole time. This morning, it happened to me on my work computer. I had only conducted maybe six or seven searches -- whereas yesterday I had searched a bunch of times while at work, again using one browser. No, not Devils tickets. Unfortunately, good Devils tickets are not hard to find, LOL. ... I was searching for tickets to see Van Halen, if anyone was curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95Crash Posted February 18, 2012 Author Share Posted February 18, 2012 Update: Tonight I got home from work, did a few more searches, and now I'm blocked again on my home PC. Apparently, after the 24-hour ban is lifted, the slate is NOT wiped clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils Pride 26 Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 95crash, check out stubhub, they might be available there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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