We are taking our grandkids to Disneyland. I responded to a Craig’s list ad for tickets for Disneyland. I was wary but the tickets that Disneyland sells are expensive and I have heard that this method ‘works.’ I contacted the seller via email and we exchanged telephone calls.
My wife and I were in the Fresno area for three days, returning on Martin Luther King Day. The seller gave me his address. We would pick up and pay for the tickets en route home to the Inland Empire from the Fresno area.
The seller and I nearly closed the deal on Sunday morning, five tickets @ $45 each but I needed to confirm with my wife and call back for my final confirmation. I called two times on Sunday and one time on Sunday. The seller finally called to confirm the sale, just as we were returning home from the central valley. We were in business.
The seller had given me the address but I could not find it on Google. Should I have quit then? The seller reconfirmed the address with my wife as we were returning to LA and home…and the tickets. She punched it into our GPS system and it asked for a series of addresses, none of them near the address the seller had given us. But, we logged in the city and headed that direction. About an hour from the city, we called and confirmed the time we would meet. Thirty minutes from the destination we called again and confirmed we’d meet the seller at his home. At 12:30 pm, the appointed time, we called near the address but not arrived yet. The seller said that he was at a drug store.
“Can you meet me at the drug store?”
“I want to meet you at your home.”
“Ok. Go to __ Street, turn right, and go to _____ Street and turn right again. I am four houses on the right.
We followed his directions and found ourselves on the right street (the original address) but the houses were in the 10,000 range, not the 1000 range, the address range he gave us. We pulled over and as we were talking with him, he passed us in an Infinity. He pulled over and stopped ahead of us. We pulled up behind him.
“I don’t feel so comfortable about this.” I said, as we met on the street.
“Here are the tickets” he said, showing me five sheets of paper, “e-tickets.” They were e-tickets, each with a different bar code.
“I want to pay you for them in your home, “ I said.
“Ok,” he said. “Follow me.’
We crossed the street and walked back a house to 10964 _____ Street. This was on the ‘left’ not the ‘right’ of his directions. He stood at the front door for a short time and then turned to me. “I need to enter in the back.”
I followed him to the chain-link fence that kept two dogs from the street. They barked at us, though not so viciously. As he entered the gate, I said, “I’ll wait for you at the front.” I walked around to the front and waited. It may only have been 3 – 4 minutes, but it seemed longer. It was certainly long enough for me to consider bolting: getting in the car and taking off. I am not certain why I did not.
He came out of the front door and approached me. He did not invite me into the house. He said in not a mean spirited way, “Look, you can leave if you want. You don’t have to buy the tickets. My friend works in customer relations at Disneyland and he gets these for me. I sell them and we split the income. The tickets are good. You won’t have any problem.
I paid him the $225, we shook hands, and I left, still a bit confused by it all, but hopeful that the tickets would work…for my three grandchildren, my wife and myself. I will use the tickets in the next 10 days and the seller says they’ll be good.
Why was I uncomfortable? 1)Why would the seller give us a false house number on a good street? 2)Why would the seller, at the last minute, tell us he would meet us at a pharmacy, rather than at his home? It is these two ingredients of this transaction that gave me pause and made me wonder if these tickets are part of a scam. Naturally, I want the tickets to get us into the park to enjoy Disneyland with our grand children. Also important: even if they do “work,” what are the conditions that this seller got them and what is his—and his friend’s—relationship to the Park?
All this, for a better deal. Stay tuned to know how this little story turns out.
Postscript: It was a scam… though Disneyland let us use three of the tickets. Live and Learn.
