Fan denied 'once in a lifetime' experience after Paul McCartney tickets turn out to be invalid

After snagging a pair of floortickets to Paul McCartney's Vancouver concert on Saturday,Adrian Brijbassiwas looking forward to a night of music and dancing.

But when he arrived at B.C. Place with his tickets,which he'dpaid more than $650 for,he was told that they were invalidbecause someone had already entered the venue on the same tickets.

Brijbassi had purchased them on StubHub, a resale website that allows people to upload tickets and resell them and he found out from B.C. Place staff that he wasn't alone in his experience.

"They said I'd have to contact StubHub and that I wasn't the only person that it had happened with through StubHub that night," he said.

Brijbassitried to get in touch with StubHubthrough their online chat portal, where he was promised they'd find a solution, but he eventually went home without getting into the concert.

He has since been reimbursed the price of his tickets, but said he's disappointed that he missed out on a concert he'd been looking forward to for weeks.

"It wasn't about the money, it was about having the experience of seeing Paul McCartney. I was denied an experience that would be once in a lifetime and StubHub needs to do better," he said.

Local ticket brokerKingsley Bailey said the problem often comes from when a seller, either accidently or on purpose, uploads their tickets on more than one resale site, or uploads the same ticket multiple times.

"An individual might have have uploaded them twice due to human error and the tickets were sold, or could have been sold three or four times," he said.

Bailey said the benefit of working with a local broker is that if you do run into a problem with your tickets, you're more likely to get it resolved.

"People want the convenience of online, but these are the situations that are going to happen," he said.

StubHub did not immediatelyrespond to CBC's request for comment.

Brijbassisaid he won't be buying tickets through the online ticket reseller again, despite the convenience.

"Someone should be looking out for the consumer, some kind of watchdog but this has been happening since I've been going to concerts," he said.