Is Event Tickets Center Legit? What to Check Before You Buy

Is Event Tickets Center a Real Company?

Yes. BBB lists Event Tickets Center, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida, accredited since Dec. 16, 2021, with a business start date of June 17, 1999. What the site sells is resale inventory: tickets that other parties bought first and relisted. The company says as much on its own pages.

A resale marketplace, in its own words

Event Tickets Center is not a box office. A secondary marketplace is a place to buy other people's tickets: brokers and individual sellers list inventory they own, and the site runs the transaction.

Its FAQ page states: "We are a nationwide exchange where registered companies and individuals resell tickets."

Who owns and prices the tickets

The same page is direct about responsibility: "We do not own, price, or ship tickets."

Read that alongside the disclosure the site keeps on its pages, "Resale marketplace, prices may be above face value", and the figure on a listing is a seller's asking price, not a published face value.

The company on public record

The BBB facts above come from the BBB profile for Event Tickets Center, Inc., compiled by a third party, so they can be checked without relying on the company's own description. All BBB details in this article were checked on July 30, 2026.

Which Site Are You Actually On?

Read the domain in your address bar before you weigh any review. Event Tickets Center operates eventticketscenter.com. A separate business, Tickets-Center.com, holds its own BBB profile in Dover, Delaware. Reviews of one tell you nothing about the other, and neither do their refund terms or complaint records.

Check the domain before anything else

The site this article covers is eventticketscenter.com. Searches for it also come in as event ticket center, events ticket center and eventticketscenter, and results for those three spellings mix more than one company.

Two checks settle it: the domain in your address bar, and the sender's domain on your order confirmation if you have already paid.

Tickets-Center.com is a different business

Tickets-Center.com holds its own BBB profile, which lists it in Dover, Delaware with a file opened in 2019, and describes itself as "a third-party platform where consumers can buy event tickets listed by independent resellers."

Why Event Tickets Center Prices Run Above Face Value

Above-face pricing is how resale works. Sellers choose the asking price and the marketplace adds a service fee. Since May 2025, a federal rule has required ticket sellers to show the total price up front, so the number to check is the fee-inclusive total on the final screen.

Sellers set the price, not the site

Because the company states it does not price tickets, a listing carries one seller's judgment about demand for that seat. That is why two adjacent seats can be priced differently.

Demand cuts both ways: the how-it-works page says there are "many cases where prices for an event are lower in the secondary markets than the primary markets." Sold-out shows are where the gap turns against buyers.

What the service fee pays for

Neither page that discusses fees publishes a rate.

What the fee buys is put in general terms. The FAQ page says, "Service fees support website security, maintenance, and customer service," and the how-it-works page adds that fees go toward "powering anti-fraud technology, automation and fulfillment systems."

The FTC fee-disclosure rule

Since May 12, 2025, the Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464, has applied to live-event ticket sales, covering third-party platforms and resellers alongside primary sellers. A business may not advertise a price without disclosing the total price clearly and conspicuously, with all mandatory fees included (government-imposed taxes and shipping charges may be disclosed later before payment, as permitted exclusions), displayed more prominently than other pricing information, except the final amount of payment.

The rule leaves fee amounts alone: it "does not prohibit any one type of fee, nor does it prohibit specific pricing practices such as itemization of fees or dynamic pricing." Event Tickets Center references it on its how-it-works page: "as of May 2025, The FTC has required that all ticket marketplaces disclose any added fees in the ticket listing."

Event Tickets Center Refunds and Cancellations

Event Tickets Center says purchases cannot be canceled: the FAQ rules that out once an order is placed. Event Tickets Center's 100% Buyer Guarantee covers three failures: late tickets, tickets that do not match your order, and an event canceled without a new date. The markup and second thoughts sit outside it.

No returns, cancellations, or exchanges

Three details are worth reading twice before you confirm: the date, the section and seat numbers, and the quantity. A ticket bought for the wrong night is still a valid ticket, which puts it outside the guarantee below.

The FAQ page states it plainly: "Unfortunately, there are no returns, cancellations, or exchanges once a ticket is purchased."

What Event Tickets Center's 100% Buyer Guarantee covers

The company sets out three commitments on its "Is Event Tickets Center Legit?" page:

• On-Time Delivery: "Your tickets will arrive before the event."

• Valid Entry: "Your tickets will be identical to (or better than) what you ordered and guaranteed valid for entry."

• Full Refund: "If an event is canceled and not rescheduled, you get 100% of your money back."

The FAQ page narrows the third one: on a canceled event you get a "full refund minus any delivery charges if the tickets have already been delivered." Its customer reviews page frames the first one loosely, offering a refund "worth up to 100% of the price of your ticket" if tickets do not arrive.

What sits outside it

The markup is not a defect: if the same seat turns up cheaper elsewhere later, the guarantee has nothing to say about it. A change of mind is not covered either, under the no-cancellations rule above.

A postponed event is not a canceled one: the FAQ tells buyers to hold onto their tickets because "in almost all cases, they will be valid for the new date." Confirm which word the organizer used before you assume a refund applies.

If your tickets have not arrived yet

Delivery can occur close to the event date, depending on the event and seller, so an undelivered ticket is not necessarily a failed order before the stated delivery deadline. Delivery timing depends on the event and the seller: its FAQ page states, "You will see an 'Expected Delivery Date' during checkout, and we guarantee they will arrive in time for the show."

Work from that date on your confirmation email. If it passes with nothing delivered, contact customer service through the channel listed there, and keep the email: any guarantee claim or card dispute is assessed against it.

If you have not settled on a show yet, comparing live listings costs nothing.

How to Read Event Tickets Center Reviews

The rating you find depends on which population it came from. The company's own page cites 4.4 out of 5 from a third-party review platform. BBB gives it a B+ and also carries a Pattern of Complaints alert. Both are accurate at the same time.

Who collected the 4.4 rating

Event Tickets Center reports 'over 60,000' reviews and a 4.4/5 rating on Shopper Approved; note that the Shopper Approved directory description currently shows '59,000+' reviews and '6 million customers,' which may reflect an outdated profile description on that platform.

Shopper Approved is the third-party review platform the company cites on its own page. The average summarizes one population: its customer reviews page says the score is "based on verified purchases and support interactions." That says something about the orders that went through, and nothing about the ones that go wrong.

What the BBB record shows

The BBB profile shows a B+ rating and accreditation since Dec. 16, 2021, alongside two alerts, one of them a Pattern of Complaints. Among the reasons BBB gives for that rating: the "business has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints."

Accreditation and a complaint pattern are not a contradiction: accreditation reflects meeting BBB's standards and answering complaints, while the alert reflects one category of complaint recurring without its root cause being resolved.

The same profile holds a second discrepancy: BBB lists a business start date of June 17, 1999, while the company's own page says it "has been a staple in the industry since 2005."

The lawsuit, and where it stands

In Gershzon v. Event Tickets Center, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-04142 (N.D. Cal.), a buyer filed a proposed class action in July 2024 for nationwide and California purchasers. The court's order summarizes the claim: "Plaintiff alleges ETC's business is essentially a scam, overcharging consumers for tickets and sometimes selling outright counterfeits."

On Aug. 12, 2025, Chief Judge Richard Seeborg granted the company's motion to compel arbitration and stayed the case pending arbitration. The plaintiff conceded the agreement was valid and argued the company had waived it by litigating for 10 months first; the court disagreed. No court has ruled on whether the allegations are true.

What to Check Before Any Resale Purchase

Three checks apply to any resale marketplace, and each takes under a minute: confirm the fee-inclusive total on the final screen, read the guarantee by the events it names, and confirm which company you are contracting with. None of them require trusting a badge.

Confirm the total before you commit

Advance to the final screen and read the amount you will be charged, fees included, before entering payment details. Under the rule above, that total is what a seller has to show you.

If it is higher than you planned for, stopping there costs nothing. Compare listings in the same section, try a different section, or see the latest ways to save first.

Read the guarantee, not the badge

The events a guarantee names tell you more than its title does. Ask four questions of any platform: what happens if tickets never arrive, if they do not scan at the gate, if the event is canceled outright, and if it moves to a new date.

The fourth answer varies between marketplaces, which makes it the one to read in full. Those four questions are how we assessed Gametime.

Where TicketX fits

TicketX is a resale marketplace as well, and the same four questions apply. TicketX lists tickets with no hidden fees. TicketX's Buyer Guarantee provides a full refund in four cases:

• Counterfeit or invalid tickets

• Tickets that fail to arrive in time

• An event canceled with no replacement date

• A seller who never transfers the order

Those are defined events: a resale price you later regret sits outside them on TicketX too. The terms are in our own legitimacy breakdown.

This is not a verdict on Event Tickets Center. It is a set of conditions you can read before you agree to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Event Tickets Center is a real, BBB-accredited resale marketplace, and it is a different company from Tickets-Center.com. Its guarantee names three failures it stands behind, independent sellers set the prices, and its BBB record carries a Pattern of Complaints alert alongside a B+ grade.

Is Event Tickets Center a legitimate company?

Yes. BBB lists Event Tickets Center, Inc. at a Gainesville, Florida address and has shown it as accredited since Dec. 16, 2021. It operates a resale marketplace, and it says so on its own pages. "Legitimate" answers the wrong worry, though. What will affect your order is the seller-set price, the service fee added on top, and the rule that a purchase cannot be canceled or exchanged once made. Read the terms you are agreeing to before you decide to pay.

Is Event Tickets Center the same as Ticket Center?

No. Tickets-Center.com is a separate company with its own BBB profile, listed in Dover, Delaware, while Event Tickets Center, Inc. is listed in Gainesville, Florida. Reviews, refund terms and complaint records do not transfer between them. Check the domain in your address bar, and in your order confirmation if you have already paid, then look up that exact domain. Support contacts differ too, so a phone number found for one will not help with an order placed on the other.

Can you get a refund from Event Tickets Center?

Not as a general right. The FAQ page states there are no returns, cancellations or exchanges once a ticket is purchased. Refunds attach to specific failures under Event Tickets Center's 100% Buyer Guarantee: tickets that do not arrive before the event, tickets that are not what you ordered, and an event canceled and not rescheduled. For a postponed event, the FAQ says tickets will in almost all cases stay valid for the new date, so confirm whether the organizer canceled or rescheduled.

Why are Event Tickets Center prices higher than the box office?

Because the box office is not the seller. The company states it does not own, price or ship tickets, so each listing carries an independent seller's asking price, and a service fee is added at checkout. The site's standing disclosure says prices may be above face value. The company notes resale prices are sometimes below primary ones, though for sold-out events the gap usually runs against the buyer. Comparing two or three listings in one section shows where a price sits.

Is Event Tickets Center BBB accredited?

Yes, accredited since Dec. 16, 2021, with a B+ rating as of July 30, 2026. The profile also carries two alerts, one of them a Pattern of Complaints, and BBB cites a failure to "resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints" among its rating reasons. Those facts coexist: accreditation reflects meeting BBB standards and answering complaints, while the alert reflects a recurring complaint type whose root cause remains unresolved. Ratings and alerts change, so open the profile and read the current version yourself.