Fanpass Review

Name: fanpass
Brand: fanpass

last updated - 30/09/2024

Founded in 2015, Fanpass is a secondary ticketing platform that primarily focuses on football tickets. In this detailed Fanpass review, we explore the buying experience first-hand, answer the question, "Is Fanpass legit?", and provide key insights into Fanpass reviews from other customers, including Fanpass Trustpilot ratings.

VISIT Fanpass

Pros

Busy marketplace with many active buyers and sellers
100% money back guarantee
Easy-to-use website
UK-based with postal address
Seating together available
Clear stadium plans

Cons

History of online security issues
No PayPal option
No telephone number or live customer support
Unresponsive communication
Tricky criteria for obtaining refunds
Fees are not clearly indicated
Heavily focused on Europe
Minimal concert, rugby and tennis tickets

Fanpass operates as a secondary ticketing platform offering tickets for football matches and music concerts. In the last few years their reputation has taken a hit due to unreliable sellers.

At Ticket Compare, we set high standards for secondary marketplaces to feature on our site. We do not currently collaborate with Fanpass, following some damaging reports about the platform’s trustworthiness and online security, which we’ll go into later.

However, in our previous experience the site generally provided a satisfactory service, and it has garnered many happy customers.

Nevertheless, we decided to put Fanpass to the test, assessing our transaction from start to finish. On 13 February 2024, we ordered tickets for the Newcastle vs Bournemouth fixture at St. James’ Park on 17 February 2024.

Here’s our comprehensive review of Fanpass and whether Fanpass Trustpilot ratings reflect the real customer experience.

Buying Experience with Fanpass

The buying experience on Fanpass was smooth and easy to navigate, so no complaints there.

Ticket Availability

Fanpass had a decent range of tickets available for the Newcastle fixture, offering various seating categories and price options.

I opted for the lower-priced tickets, and Fanpass provided a seating plan that clearly indicated where I would be seated.

Ticket Pricing

Tickets ranged from £112 to over £300. I purchased a £112 seat, which was reasonable but, as I discovered, not the cheapest available.

A quick search on Ticket Compare revealed cheaper options from other platforms.

This included £94 tickets on LiveFootballTickets

…and around £75 on StubHub.

Although these resale tickets weren’t identical in seating location, it is worth noting that Fanpass didn’t offer the lowest prices.

Group Tickets

I only needed a single ticket, but Fanpass makes it easy to buy multiple tickets for group seating, with several options available.

Payment Process

Fanpass accepts Visa, Mastercard, and Amex but does not support PayPal. Also disturbing is that my initial payment was flagged by my bank as suspicious.

After confirming it was a legitimate transaction, the payment was processed successfully.

The platform’s order status tracker, showing stages like ‘confirmation pending’ and ‘delivered,’ was useful for following my ticket purchase.

Ticket Delivery

Fanpass promises immediate e-ticket delivery.

I received an email about my ticket just two minutes after purchase, and it was simple to add the ticket to my phone’s wallet for easy access.

Customer Support

I didn’t need to contact customer support during my purchase, but to test Fanpass’s responsiveness, I sent an email asking about the ‘your seller is a trusted seller’ symbol that appears on all of their listings.

While they responded within three hours, the explanation that sellers are marked as trusted based on a ‘certain amount of time’ working with Fanpass felt vague and unsatisfying.

It seems that every listing features this symbol. Given some of the issues that the site has had with unreliable sellers, the symbol seems generic and doesn’t generate any extra trust.

The email response did not provide the reassurance I had hoped for, leaving me unsure about the legitimacy of the criteria used to verify sellers. So is Fanpass safe? I’m not so sure.

Match-Day Experience

All told, my match-day experience with Fanpass went without a hitch. I had no trouble accessing the stadium, and the view from my seat was excellent.

The first half was tightly contested, with Bournemouth creating better chances but being repeatedly denied by Newcastle’s goalkeeper, Martin Dubravka.

In the second half, the game shifted. In the 51st minute, Dubravka slipped on the wet pitch, allowing Dominic Solanke to score with a simple tap-in. Newcastle responded with increased pressure and earned a dangerous free kick in Bournemouth’s half.

Fabian Schar managed to evade his marker and was fouled, resulting in a penalty after a lengthy VAR review of 4 minutes that frustrated the home fans. After what felt like an eternity for the Geordies’, Anthony Gordon successfully converted the penalty, levelling the score.

Fabian Schar evaded his marker and was fouled, resulting in a penalty after a lengthy 4-minute VAR review that frustrated the home fans. Anthony Gordon converted the penalty, leveling the score.

The excitement ramped up as Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo broke down the right flank to give his team a 2-1 lead. Desperate for an equaliser, Newcastle turned to the bench, bringing on Jacob Murphy and Matt Ritchie.

In a storybook moment, Ritchie scored against his former team in the 92nd minute to secure a dramatic draw for Newcastle.

Terms and Conditions

Fanpass provides a guarantee that if a seller pulls out, they will offer a replacement ticket or refund.

I was also reminded of the guarantee as I was about to make the payment, which eased my mind a little.

This is reassuring, though in some cases, a replacement may not be possible due to the nature of the secondary market.

As we’ll show below, a refund isn’t going to be an ideal solution if you’ve been turned away at the venue on matchday.

Fanpass Refund Concerns

It is also concerning that you have to provide evidence of refused entry to qualify for a refund. Still, this is a point worth keeping in mind—you have to be sure to obtain a note from the organiser if you get turned away.

Fanpass Fees Policy

Fees are an inevitable part of any secondary market transaction. With that in mind, it would be better if the platform could be as up-front as possible about what the fees are used for. The wording in this section is vague and confusing:

Fanpass Reviews and Trustpilot Ratings

This platform has over 7,000 Fanpass reviews on Trustpilot, with an ‘Excellent’ rating. Approximately 71% of these reviews are 5-star, apparently highlighting smooth transactions and positive match-day experiences for the most part.

While Fanpass Trustpilot scores are high, there are too many reports of unreliable sellers to ignore.

Indeed, a closer look at their review score reveals a significant minority of disappointed customers, and leaves me with the feeling that my experience could have gone much worse—maybe I dodged a bullet?

Repeated Issues with Fanpass Sellers

One scenario that comes up often is a seller being unable to provide the tickets that were advertised, either due to fake or duplicate tickets.

This leaves fans in a difficult situation, especially those traveling from abroad who have already booked flights and accommodation.

Problems at the Turnstiles

Another recurring issue is tickets not working at the turnstiles, with fans being turned away disappointed. There are also cases where the tickets received are completely different from those advertised.

In the best scenarios, this might mean different seats within the stadium, but in worse situations, the tickets are intended for juniors or senior citizens.

A Lack of Communication

Throughout this process it seems that, like me, many customers were kept in the dark about their tickets. This goes for people who were able to get into the venue, as much as those who were turned away.

Using the secondary market to attend events naturally comes with some trepidation, so it’s a major black mark against Fanpass that they weren’t able to offer responsive and personalised assurance in the days before the event.

Refunds Don’t Fix the Negative Experience

In many of these instances, Fanpass appears to provide refunds.

However, this does not compensate for the inconvenience, expenses, and disappointment of being let down on what should be a special occasion.

Unresolved Complaints

On platforms like Complaintsboard.com, unresolved complaints suggest that Fanpass could improve its handling of problematic sellers.

The 2022 Security Breach

Something that hasn’t affected me but should be mentioned in my Fanpass review is that a massive cache of user data was stolen from the site back on April 30, 2022.

The leak was flagged by Mozilla Monitor, a security service that uses data from ‘Have I Been Pwned?’ to scan for compromised accounts in known data breaches.

The records of more than 112,000 customers were exposed in the breach. As you can see, they included names, physical addresses, phone numbers, purchase histories, and more.

Security is crucial when making any transaction online, and a breach like this further undermines confidence, in an industry where trust is essential.

So this is something we will have to take into account in our review score.

Verdict

Overall, my Fanpass experience was positive. The site offers a good variety of Premier League tickets, and the process was smooth. However, while many customers enjoy a trouble-free experience, the presence of unreliable sellers listing fake or duplicate tickets is an ongoing concern and must be noted. Also, while these problems persist, Fanpass only does the bare minimum to keep buyers informed. I have the impression that my experience may be the exception and not the norm, and I also have to raise my concerns about Fanpass’s online security. So we recommend that Fanpass takes more action to ensure a consistently safe experience for all users.

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