Dilemma on buying tickets from a private party. Paypal, Venmo, or StubHub okay?

short+sassy

Hey all, I'm hoping you can help me out.

There's a Food and Wine Tasting event going on Saturday where I live.  I've gone in the past and enjoy it, but I am WAY too cheap to pay full price, lol.

There is currently a Craig's List ad where someone is trying to sell their tickets to that event and another related one that is the night before.  They want $80 per ticket for the events combo, so $160 for me and H.  Which is a GREAT price.

Here's the problem for me.  In their current ad, they want the money sent via Paypal and then they will send the tickets electronically.  Which is how they said they received the tickets.  I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.  I know if you buy something through Paypal through a portal like Ebay, there are protections if you don't get your item.  But I'm not sure if that is true outside of Ebay.

In previous ads, they mentioned Paypal or Venmo or StubHub.  I'm not that familiar with those websites, but am assuming they might be "safer" and have more protections if the tickets aren't sent or turn out to be bogus.

I'd appreciate any thoughts, opinions, and/or experiences.  I'm tempted, but obviously don't want to be scammed.

As a side note, I was shocked to see only this one lone person selling tickets for this event.  In previous years, there were usually a few ads.

Lulawife

For Paypal, I have limited knowledge on how this applies to event tickets but I imagine their policies are mostly the same no matter the goods being sold. If you send the seller money via "Friends and Family" you do not have protection if they don't send you the tickets. You have to send as money for goods or they can send you an invoice. Then you are protected. There are fees associated with that for the seller but I think they are minimal so maybe offer to cover those fees in order to protect yourself. 

ETA: this link sums up your protections in Paypal if you send money for goods and services and don't receive it: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/paypal-safety-and-security#paypal-protects-your-purchase-protection

Jells2dot0

I buy sporting event tickets on Stub Hub all of the time. I have never had an issue. 

ahoywedding

Seconding StubHub, I buy sports tickets there all the time and haven't had any issues! I'm not sure if there's a cost to the seller to list them there or not though.

JaxInBlue

I agree about StubHub.  We've used them for sporting events and had zero problems.  We even had a delivery issue one time for printed tickets that were lost by FedEx and StubHub had the issue fixed and tickets sent in 24 hours.

short+sassy

Thanks all!  I'll see if the seller is still willing to sell them through StubHub instead of just Paypal.

WinstonsGirl

Stubhub is safe, as I think it's actually an official ticket re-sell site (I think through ticketmaster), so tickets are transferred with payment.  I have used paypal in the past, but the person was related to a teammate, so I knew who they were.