Ticket fraud
Ticket fraud at community events is rarely criminal forgery; it is almost always the same ticket arriving twice in two different hands.
Ticket fraud covers any attempt to enter on a ticket that is not validly yours: a copied code, a forwarded screenshot, a ticket resold after being refunded, or an invented code. In practice the first is by far the most common, and it is caught the moment the second copy is presented.
What actually happens
Someone sends a friend a photograph of their ticket. Both arrive; the first through the door takes the place and the second gets a red screen. Neither of them necessarily intended anything dishonest, and the conversation at the gate goes better if you assume that.
Genuine resale fraud shows up where tickets are scarce and expensive. A buyer pays a stranger online, receives a real screenshot of a real ticket, and discovers at the entrance that the code has already been used by someone else.
What a duplicate scan tells you
A duplicate scan means the place has been used, not that the person in front of you is lying. The useful detail is when and where the first scan happened: two minutes ago at the same gate is a different story from an hour ago at the other entrance.
Decide the policy in advance. Most organisers let the first holder in and deal with the second at a side desk rather than in the queue, which keeps the line moving and the conversation private.
What Passavo does about it
A code that has already been through shows an amber 'already scanned' warning, with the time of the first scan when the same device made it. A ticket you cancel in the admin scans as invalid.
If resale is a worry for your event, you can ask for an attendee name during checkout and print it on the ticket, which makes a forwarded screenshot much less useful to whoever receives it.
Also searched for as
- duplicate scan
- copied tickets
- ticket touting
- fake tickets
Common questions
Can we stop people forwarding their tickets?
You cannot prevent the forwarding, but only one copy gets in. Printing the attendee name on the ticket discourages it further.
Does a refunded ticket still open the door?
Not once you cancel it. Refunding and cancelling are two separate steps on the same screen; a cancelled ticket scans as invalid, and devices working offline pick that up when they reload today's list.