Ticketing fraud: War stories, chargebacks, and lessons from sports event ticketing
Today I am talking about ticketing fraud and why one of the most important truths in fraud prevention is that fraud does not look the same in every business. Because that is really the issue here. The fraud attempts your company sees, the signals that matter most, and the strategies that actually work all depend heavily on your vertical. Outdoor equipment retailers have one set of problems. Sneaker retailers have another. Online gaming companies have another. And sports and event ticketing has its own very specific fraud pressures.
In this episode of Fraudology, I kick off a new series focused on fraud war stories from different ecommerce verticals, because one of the best ways to understand fraud is to hear directly from the people dealing with it in their own environment. In this first episode of the series, I talk with Holly Sandberg of Paciolan, a Comcast company, about what makes sports and event ticketing so unique, what fraud attempts look like in her world, and how her team thinks about the risks.
We also get into Holly’s passion for leadership, mentorship, continual learning, and collaboration, which makes this conversation useful beyond just the ticketing space. And this matters. Because ticketing fraud is not just about one niche category of ecommerce abuse. It is a very strong example of how industry-specific fraud changes the rules, changes the attacker incentives, and forces teams to build much more tailored prevention strategies than generic advice usually allows.
Here is what that fraud lens means in practice:
- Ticketing fraud reflects how strongly fraud patterns are shaped by ecommerce vertical
- Sports ticketing fraud and event ticket fraud create unique chargeback, resale, and timing challenges
- Ecommerce fraud by vertical matters because one-size-fits-all fraud prevention usually misses what is most important
- Collaboration in fraud, mentorship in fraud, and continual learning all help teams respond better to industry-specific fraud
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- Why ticketing fraud looks different from fraud in many other ecommerce verticals
- What sports ticketing fraud and fraud in ticket sales look like from Holly Sandberg’s perspective
- How ticketing chargebacks, online event fraud, and ticket marketplace fraud affect this industry
- Why leadership in fraud, mentorship in fraud, and collaboration in fraud matter so much in high-pressure roles
- What fraud best practices and fraud career advice can be learned from this vertical-specific perspective
You should listen to this episode if you:
- Work in fraud, ecommerce, ticketing, events, or payments and want to better understand ticketing fraud
- Need insight into sports ticketing fraud, event ticket fraud, and fraud in ticket sales
- Care about ecommerce fraud by vertical, industry-specific fraud, and ticketing risk management
- Want practical fraud best practices, fraud war stories, and fraud career advice from a different vertical
- Are interested in leadership in fraud, mentorship in fraud, and stronger collaboration in fraud
If you liked this episode, let us know. Rate and review this episode to not only tell us that you enjoyed it, but to also help others find it.
Episode notes & key takeaways
Ticketing fraud proves that every ecommerce vertical has its own fraud reality
Let’s break this down. One of the most useful lessons in fraud prevention is that merchants cannot assume another company’s fraud problems will look exactly like their own. The vertical matters too much for that.
Ticketing fraud is a perfect example. In sports and event ticketing, the product, timing, customer urgency, resale dynamics, and fulfillment model all shape the fraud environment in very specific ways. That means fraud in ticket sales cannot be understood well through generic retail assumptions alone.
This is exactly why ecommerce fraud by vertical is such an important idea. The more teams understand the realities of their own space, the less likely they are to apply the wrong framework to the wrong problem.
- Ticketing fraud highlights how much ecommerce fraud changes by industry
- Ecommerce fraud by vertical matters because product type shapes attacker behavior
- Industry-specific fraud requires more tailored detection and response strategies
- Fraud best practices are stronger when they are grounded in the actual business model
Sports and event ticketing has a very specific fraud pressure profile
This is where things get especially practical. Sports ticketing fraud and event ticket fraud come with a unique set of incentives that make the environment very different from many other ecommerce businesses.
Here’s what is actually happening. Tickets are time-sensitive, emotionally charged, often high-demand, and frequently resold or transferred. That combination can create fraud pressure around account abuse, payment misuse, resale manipulation, and disputes that look different from what a traditional product merchant may see.
That is why ticketing risk management requires its own thinking. The product is not just digital or physical. It is access, timing, and demand all at once.
- Sports ticketing fraud is shaped by urgency, scarcity, and resale value
- Event ticket fraud often involves very different incentives than standard merchandise fraud
- Online event fraud creates risk around access, transferability, and time-sensitive delivery
- Ticketing risk management needs to reflect the specific economics of ticket demand
Chargebacks in ticketing can be especially painful because the product is experiential and time-bound
Another important part of the ticketing fraud conversation is chargebacks. Ticketing chargebacks can be especially difficult because once the event happens, the value has already been consumed or lost in a way that cannot be recovered like inventory on a shelf.
That matters because the merchant is often dealing with a product that cannot simply be restocked or clawed back. If the fraud or dispute is not caught in time, the business may be left absorbing a loss tied to an experience that has already taken place. That creates a very different operational pressure than a lot of other ecommerce categories.
This is one reason ticket marketplace fraud and event ticket disputes can become so complicated. Timing is not just a detail. It is the whole game.
- Ticketing chargebacks can be harder to recover from because the product is time-bound
- Fraud in ticket sales often becomes more expensive once the event date passes
- Ticket marketplace fraud can add complexity around ownership, transfer, and dispute responsibility
- Ticketing fraud requires fast decisions because the recovery window is often very small
Vertical-specific fraud experience creates some of the best fraud learning
One of the reasons I wanted to launch this series is that fraud war stories from different verticals are incredibly useful. They help show how fraud really works in live business environments, not just in abstract categories.
Holly’s perspective is valuable because she is speaking from direct experience inside a vertical with its own pressures, patterns, and tradeoffs. That makes the lessons sharper. Even if someone does not work in ticketing, there is a lot to learn from how another industry thinks about risk, adaptation, and operational reality.
This is exactly why fraud war stories matter. They make fraud prevention more practical.
- Fraud war stories help teams understand how fraud plays out inside real business models
- Industry-specific fraud lessons often travel well even across very different verticals
- Fraud best practices become more useful when they are rooted in lived experience
- Ecommerce fraud by vertical is easier to understand when practitioners explain their own environment
Leadership, mentorship, and collaboration matter just as much as the tactics
What also makes this episode especially strong is that it is not only about fraud attempts. Holly also talks about leadership in fraud, mentorship in fraud, continual learning, and collaboration. That matters because strong fraud teams are not built on tactics alone.
Fraud is a field where people need to keep learning, keep adapting, and keep helping each other grow. That is especially true in specialized environments where experience compounds over time and where practical knowledge often matters as much as theory.
This is one of the reasons fraud career advice is such a valuable part of the conversation. Better fraud work often comes from better people development.
- Leadership in fraud helps teams stay effective as risk keeps changing
- Mentorship in fraud builds stronger practitioners and stronger long-term programs
- Collaboration in fraud improves both tactical response and team resilience
- Fraud career advice is often most useful when it comes from people solving real business problems
The bigger theme in this episode is that fraud prevention gets much better when we stop pretending every ecommerce business faces the same fraud reality. Holly brings a valuable view into sports and event ticketing, and that makes the conversation useful both for people in that vertical and for anyone trying to think more clearly about industry-specific fraud. And that is the real takeaway. Ticketing fraud is a reminder that the best fraud strategies are built for the business you actually have, not the generic one people assume you run.
