Terms of Service

The short version

AmbushTix is a marketplace for verified ticket resale. Buying or selling tickets here means you agree to the rules below. Boiled down: be honest, don’t scam, don’t take payments off the platform, and don’t list tickets you don’t actually own. Buyers pay a 5% fee plus sales tax; sellers pay a flat 5% fee when their tickets sell. Money sits in escrow until 48 hours after the event is scheduled to start so both sides are protected.

1. Who can use AmbushTix

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• You must give us accurate information (real name, real email, real ID for sellers).
• One account per person. Don’t share accounts with anyone else.
• If you’ve been banned from AmbushTix before, you may not create a new account.

2. Membership

AmbushTix has two membership tiers. Seller membership is free and granted automatically when you create an account — you must still complete identity verification before your listings go live. Buyer membership costs $17.16/year and is required to purchase tickets.

• Buyer membership costs $17.16 per year, billed via Stripe to the payment method on file.
• You can cancel any time from your account page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle — no partial refunds.
• If a renewal payment fails, your membership enters a 7-day grace period. We’ll email you to update your card. If it’s still failing after 7 days, your membership expires and you’ll need to renew before buying again. Your listings stay live — selling doesn’t require a membership.
• Buyer membership fees are non-refundable except where required by law.

3. Buying tickets

• Buyers pay a 5% service fee plus applicable sales tax — both shown as line items at checkout, on top of the listed price.
• When you click Buy, the tickets are held for you for 10 minutes while you complete payment. If you abandon checkout, they go back into inventory.
• Payment is processed by Stripe. We never see your card number.
• Your purchase is final once payment succeeds, subject to the dispute rights in section 6 below.
• For PDF tickets, you’ll get a download link by email immediately. The link expires in 15 minutes — download the file and save it locally.
• For mobile transfers (Ticketmaster, AXS, etc.), you provide the seller a phone or email to send the tickets to. Sellers are expected to complete the transfer within a few hours of receiving your contact info.

4. Selling tickets

• Before your first listing goes live, you must complete identity verification through Stripe Identity. This is a one-time, ID + selfie check. We use a third-party (Stripe) so AmbushTix never sees your government ID itself.
• You may only list tickets you actually own and have the right to resell. Listing tickets you don’t have is grounds for immediate suspension and possible legal action.
• You may not list the same ticket twice — we hash barcodes to detect duplicates and your listing will be auto-flagged.
• Sellers pay a 5% fee, deducted from the payout when your ticket sells. If your ticket doesn’t sell, you owe nothing.
• For PDF listings, the listing stays in “draft” status until you upload enough ticket files to cover your stated quantity, then automatically goes active.
• For mobile transfers, you must transfer the tickets to the buyer’s contact within a reasonable time after they provide it (usually within a few hours, and always before the event).
• You agree to honor the price you listed. Cancelling an order to relist at a higher price (“deliberate non-delivery”) is a serious violation.

5. Escrow and payouts

• When a buyer pays, the money goes into escrow — held by our payment processor, not paid to the seller yet.
• Payouts are released to the seller 48 hours after the event is scheduled to start, provided no dispute is open.
• Payouts go to the seller’s connected Stripe account. Settlement typically reaches the seller’s bank within 2 business days after release.
• If a dispute is opened, payout is paused until the dispute is resolved.

6. Disputes

If your tickets don’t work or the seller doesn’t deliver them, you can open a dispute.

• Buyers may open a dispute at any time up to 48 hours after the event is scheduled to start.
• Sellers have 48 hours to respond with evidence. No response = automatic decision in the buyer’s favour.
• AmbushTix decides the dispute within 48 hours of close.
• If the dispute is upheld, the buyer gets a full refund and the seller’s payout is cancelled. The seller’s trust score takes a hit.
• If the dispute is rejected, the payout proceeds normally.
• Filing a dispute in bad faith (lying, after attending the event, etc.) is grounds for suspension.

7. Event cancellations

If a venue or promoter cancels an event (not just postpones it), we automatically refund every confirmed order for that event in full, cancel any pending seller payouts, and unpublish the listings. We email everyone affected. You don’t need to file anything.

For postponed events, your tickets are still valid for the rescheduled date unless the venue tells us otherwise.

8. Things you may not do

• Take payment off-platform. The whole point of AmbushTix is escrow protection — if you ask a buyer to Venmo / Cash App / Zelle you, both parties lose protection. Off-platform payment requests in messaging are automatically blocked.
• Share phone numbers, emails, social handles, or external URLs in member-to-member messages. Same reason.
• Use bots or automated tools to buy or list tickets.
• Harass, threaten, or abuse other members. We read flagged messages and act on them.
• List tickets you don’t own, can’t transfer, or have already sold elsewhere.
• Tamper with barcodes, screenshot tickets after transfer, or otherwise deceive other members.
• Use the forum or messaging to spam or advertise external products.
• Create fake reviews, including reviewing yourself or your own orders.
• Reverse-engineer, scrape, or DOS the site.

9. Reviews, ratings, and the Top Seller program

• Buyers and sellers can review each other after a successful order. Reviews are blind for 14 days (neither side sees the other’s review until both windows close).
• Sellers with 20+ published reviews and an average rating of 4.5 or higher get the Top Seller badge, which boosts their placement in search.
• An upheld dispute reduces the seller’s trust score by 0.5 points.
• Reviews must be honest and based on a real transaction. We’ll remove reviews that violate this rule.

10. Forum and messaging

• Anything you post in the forum or in member-to-member messages must follow these rules — no off-platform contact, no harassment, no spam.
• Messages are retained for 90 days, then archived. We read them only when investigating a flagged report or open dispute.
• We may remove any forum post, message, or listing for any reason, with or without notice. We try to be reasonable about it.

11. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post (listings, descriptions, reviews, forum posts, photos). By posting it on AmbushTix, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to display, copy, and distribute that content as part of operating the service. You can delete your content at any time and the license ends — except for content quoted in a closed dispute or kept in our archives as required by law.

12. Suspension and termination

We can suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms, abuse other members, or behave in a way that creates risk for the platform. We’ll usually warn you first for minor issues; for serious violations (off-platform scams, fake tickets, harassment) we’ll act immediately.

You can close your own account from /account. We’ll keep order records for 7 years for tax and dispute purposes.

13. Disclaimers

AmbushTix is provided “as is”. We do our best to make the service reliable and accurate, but we don’t guarantee that every listing will be perfect, every seller will perform, or every event will go ahead. We’re not the promoter, the venue, or the original ticket issuer — we’re a marketplace.

We don’t guarantee that any particular ticket will scan correctly at the venue. If it doesn’t, the dispute process is how you get your money back.

14. Limit of liability

To the maximum extent allowed by law, AmbushTix’s liability to you for any claim related to the service is limited to the greater of: (a) the total amount you paid AmbushTix in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) $100.

We’re not liable for indirect, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost profits, missed events, or travel costs.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend and indemnify AmbushTix against any claim brought against us by a third party that arises from your use of the service, your content, or your violation of these terms.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Alabama, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. Any dispute that can’t be resolved informally will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Lee County, Alabama, and both you and AmbushTix consent to that venue.

17. Changes to these terms

We’ll update these terms from time to time. Material changes (anything that affects your rights or our fees) will be announced by email at least 14 days before they take effect. Continuing to use AmbushTix after a change goes into effect means you accept the new terms. If you don’t accept them, close your account before the effective date.

18. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email support@ambushtix.com.