Mom friend can’t go to concert, but wants money for her ticket

[Anonymous]

I recently went to a concert and had extra tickets because my teenager could no longer go. I originally reached out to a few people to sell and when I couldn’t, I asked people to come for free.

It sounds like this was just poor communication but I don’t think you are responsible to pay your friend.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I would assume if the friend gave the tickets to you presumably she didn’t expect $ necessarily or she should have sold the tix herself. I mean it was an event for you both together - even if you could list on StubHub you may not want to go with a random person. If she needed the $ she should have sold it herself or discussed the possibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend and I were planning on going to a concert together, she had a last minute emergency and couldn’t go so she sent the tickets to me. I told her I would try to sell them or just find someone to go with. This morning she texted me asking if I was able to sell them and I said no, but I found a friend to go with. Then she asked me for money for the ticket and I was a little taken aback, I was under the impression she just gave the tickets to me? WWYD? I had paid her for my ticket, but was just going to give her ticket to my friend. She didn’t say that up front when she cancelled.

Is she a single mom or married mom? (Is she poor)

[Anonymous]

I would have assumed that she wanted her money back if you were able to sell or find someone to go with you. It's incredibly entitled of you to just assume she was giving you the ticket.

[Anonymous]

I have given away tickets for free last minute. I also offer to pay if someone is in the same situation. It can go either way. She should have told you her preference was to sell it if you can.

[Anonymous]

It is not your job to sell her ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have assumed that she wanted her money back if you were able to sell or find someone to go with you. It's incredibly entitled of you to just assume she was giving you the ticket.

It's entitled of her to task you with selling her ticket.

[Anonymous]

Give her the money for the tickets.
Nothing in life is free. Lesson learned.

[Anonymous]

If I were the one canceling I would absolutely not expect money - I’d simply be happy you found someone to go with, so that you didn’t have to either (a) go alone to an event like this or (b) if you weren’t comfortable going alone, miss out entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s weird you assumed your friend wouldn’t want $ for the ticket.

+1, especially since you'd discussed trying to sell them.

It sounds like you are annoyed with her for having to cancel on you and want to get a free ticket for your other friend as some kind of compensation.

Given the current costs of concert tickets, I'd find this kind of rude and presumptuous. Some people can eat a cost like that, others can't. You should not have assumed she was just "giving" you the other ticket without asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Give her the money for the tickets.
Nothing in life is free. Lesson learned.

That’s a lesson for the last minute canceler. Either try harder to work around your “emergency”, just suck it up and go and deal with the emergency later, or eat the cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is not your job to sell her ticket.

Ordinarily I would agree but I think OP is being obtuse here. It's not that hard to re-sell concert tickets in this day and age -- you post them online and especially if you are far enough in advance, you can usually recoup all or most of your costs.

What I think happened is that OP *offered* to find a buyer for the second ticket because she still wanted to go, and since her friend had bought the tickets and was in possession of them, her friend handed them over so OP could do that. But instead of finding a buyer, OP just found another friend she wanted to go with and told the original friend she "couldn't find a buyer."

I think the friend would have just tried to resell her own ticket, but OP likely insisted on having it so she could try to find someone she wanted to go with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Give her the money for the tickets.
Nothing in life is free. Lesson learned.

No the lesson is, when you cancel last minute, you suffer the sunk cost.

[Anonymous]

I have assumed tickets many times for friends who dropped out and I always paid the full amount. It's strange that you expected her to still pay even when she wasn't going.

The only time I got annoyed was when my friends and I were going to an event. We couldn't find anyone to replace my friend who dropped out. So we told one friend an hour before it started to bring her 6 year old (who was well behaved and liked this event). Friend who dropped out still wanted paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This happened to me where a friend at the last minute didn’t want to go to a concert. I tried to list it on stubhub and then asked a friend if she wanted to go as I was heading to the venue. I ended up going alone. Do you think I should be responsible to pay her when she cancelled?

Yup, happened to me too. It was supposed to be 4 of us. I could not sell her ticket. She's still mad. And is very wealthy.