Sharing passes

[yeahman]

It always cracks me up going to Great Divide on a big powder day because the OWNER Kevin is always standing at the base of the Belmont lift checking passes, chatting up the mob with a grin on his face...but he's watching out for his bottom line personally. Does make you realize that anybody scamming is taking money right out of somebody's pocket. He's a good dude.

[old goat]

I'm against the practice. However, it has been my impression that for the average person (not the Martin Shkrelis and Donald Trumps of this world) financial moral standards increase in direct proportion to income. It's a lot easier being honest when you can afford it.

[gravitylover]

Used to buy a box of key rings. Put the wicket on the ring, ski the morning and sell the pass in the afternoon....just hand over the ticket and ring. No cutting.

I started using key rings in high school just to make it easier to take the ticket off my jacket because I used to like to save them. Then in college I realized it made it easy to take it off and sell it in the lot for beer and gas money before I left. My ski jackets still have key rings on them more than 30 years later...

[Flyoverland Captive]

^^^ I still use rings for the same reason; easy removal. I can also move the ticket to a different coat/pants if I want to change gear. So simple.

[The Tortoise]

We've also used them when skiing with young kids so we could swap turns babysitting in the lodge.

$100+ lift tickets can't be helping to reduce scammers either.

[bigdude2468]

Had a rather long conversation a couple of years ago with someone who is charge of checking passes at one of the Wasatch Front resorts. I asked how big of a problem it is and the response was "much bigger than you would think". What struck me and something I had never thought about when they said, "someone who would never think about shoplifting has no problem trying to get away with not buying a lift ticket". When you think about it shoplifting or poaching a lift ticket is exactly the same. They also said the problem is not isolated with just college kids but solid middle class families will try to pass season passes around.

[TahoeJ]

I'm against the practice. However, it has been my impression that for the average person (not the Martin Shkrelis and Donald Trumps of this world) financial moral standards increase in direct proportion to income. It's a lot easier being honest when you can afford it.

I'm not so sure about that. There's a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

I think many ski resorts have lost any moral high ground with how much they're charging for day passes.

[ThreeRidges]

Breck made us take photos for 4 day Epic passes, was surprised at that. Names were definitely coming up when the lifties scanned us, don't know about photos. The discounted pass for my 12 year old also made a different sound when scanned, clearly they are busting folks who try and skate by with a kids ticket.

[Conundrum]

Had a rather long conversation a couple of years ago with someone who is charge of checking passes at one of the Wasatch Front resorts. I asked how big of a problem it is and the response was "much bigger than you would think". What struck me and something I had never thought about when they said, "someone who would never think about shoplifting has no problem trying to get away with not buying a lift ticket". When you think about it shoplifting or poaching a lift ticket is exactly the same. They also said the problem is not isolated with just college kids but solid middle class families will try to pass season passes around.

Are Wasatch resorts on private or public land? If it's private land, I can see the perspective. If it's public land leased to a resort that prohibits uphill traffic, I'm not sure your analogy works.

[old goat]

I'm not so sure about that. There's a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

I think many ski resorts have lost any moral high ground with how much they're charging for day passes.

Maybe it's not affordability that makes people more honest as they get older and wealthier. Maybe it's that the fear of the consequences of being caught increases.
When you spend an outrageous sum on a day pass you're also paying for the people who scam passes.
Portraying a company as big, evil, unfair, overcharging is how we rationalize doing things we know are morally wrong.


Here's my peeve--I have passes at Squalpine and Sugar Bowl, both of which come with tickets for the other. Since I'm paying for those extra tickets I feel I should be able to use them by giving them to friends. Both resorts say otherwise--that I can only use the tickets for myself. It's their rules but seems unfair to me.

[Dee Hubbs]

When Whistler Blackcomb was bought by the big hedge fund company out of NYC they employed a team of ticket scanners to check tickets mid-mountain. It was really only one season they did this, i think it was just a thermometer check to see how much they are actually loosing by people scamming past the base only checks.
WB has recently gone to RFID gates, but when they used have hand-held scanners the employees had a bonus structure for fraud cases they turned in. People would be caught and charred with trespass. Employees were terminated if they were caught sharing their pass.
Scanned had date of birth, addresses, postal codes they could challenge if you didn't look like your pass photo. Scanners were set up to flag a pass if it was scanned again within 10 minutes.
This prevented the dropped pass from the chair lift. The best scam my first year without a season pass was to park at Base 2 ride the gondola DOWN to the main base, nobody scanned a ticket on the download side only the upload side, and when you got to the bottom you just ride the bull wheel around and head back up to the top of the mountain for free. The scam got printed in Powder magazine in the late 90's/early 2000's and a procedure was put into place to prevent it.
WB took pass fraud seriously and anyone caught was charged with trespass and depending on the severity of the fraud or their reaction to staff/police they could be banned from the mountain for life. To purchase anything more than a day ticket (like one purchased from a 3rd party discounted gas station ticket) needs photon ID. I know someone who was banned for life for a repeat offense of skiing in a permanently closed avalanche zone that had to get a real good fake ID made to purchase a seasons pass after a year of being banned.
The big resorts take it seriously.

[54-46]

Maybe it's not affordability that makes people more honest as they get older and wealthier. Maybe it's that the fear of the consequences of being caught increases.
When you spend an outrageous sum on a day pass you're also paying for the people who scam passes.
Portraying a company as big, evil, unfair, overcharging is how we rationalize doing things we know are morally wrong.


Here's my peeve--I have passes at Squalpine and Sugar Bowl, both of which come with tickets for the other. Since I'm paying for those extra tickets I feel I should be able to use them by giving them to friends. Both resorts say otherwise--that I can only use the tickets for myself. It's their rules but seems unfair to me.

I buy a pass and pay my way, but seriously doubt the marginal cost of the 1% of scammers affects the operating costs of the resorts in a measurable way. It's not like shoplifters stealing physical inventory that's tracked on a units basis.

For example, Squaw claims 600,000 skiers/year. 1% would be 6000 skiers over a season or 1000 skiers per month. 30-40 skiers a day is going to make a difference in operation costs? Nah...

[snoqpass]

I buy a pass and pay my way, but seriously doubt the marginal cost of the 1% of scammers affects the operating costs of the resorts in a measurable way. It's not like shoplifters stealing physical inventory that's tracked on a units basis.

For example, Squaw claims 600,000 skiers/year. 1% would be 6000 skiers over a season or 1000 skiers per month. 30-40 skiers a day is going to make a difference in operation costs? Nah...

$4,000 plus a day in lost sales would add up over the season. I'm guessing most of the people here rationalizing scamming tickets don't own a business

[TahoeJ]

Wondering how many people here use ad blockers? Because that's actually worse - you're costing the sites you visit bandwidth, so they're actually losing money on you visiting.

[Pegleg]

Wondering how many people here use ad blockers? Because that's actually worse - you're costing the sites you visit bandwidth, so they're actually losing money on you visiting.

Except that ad blockers aren't, you know, illegal, whereas sharing tickets/passes is in fact against the law (theft of services).

[TahoeJ]

Except that ad blockers aren't, you know, illegal, whereas sharing tickets/passes is in fact against the law (theft of services).

I thought we were discussing morality and not the law. Plenty of laws that have nothing to do with morals.

[snoqpass]

I thought we were discussing morality and not the law. Plenty of laws that have nothing to do with morals.

When a business provides a service and you use it and refuse to pay for it doesn't have any moral ambiguity

[Dantheman]

Are Wasatch resorts on private or public land? If it's private land, I can see the perspective. If it's public land leased to a resort that prohibits uphill traffic, I'm not sure your analogy works.

Snowbird, Deer Valley, Park City and Park West are private. Alta, Solitude and Brighton are FS leases.

This happened to me last season, but I paid. Next weekend I head up and get first group of chairs on GW on a sunny powder day. My pass doesn't scan. Apparently, when I bought the 50% off day pass the prior week they disabled my $1,200 big cottonwood pass.

I've wondered if Alta does the same since they only charge you $10. It would be pretty easy to "forget" your pass, get a $10 day ticket, then "find" your pass. Not something you could do every day, but potentially useful to hook up a friend, or sell it in the lot. They probably disable it though, or if the day ticket and your pass both scan into the system that day they get flagged. At this point you kind of have to assume they've thought of stuff like this, but who knows. I've also wondered if they have employees or undercover TofA Marshalls in the lot looking for people selling/soliciting day passes. The RFID cards make that so easy compared to clipping tickets.

I'm guessing most of the people here rationalizing scamming tickets don't own a business

For one thing, resorts give out comp tickets all the time, usually to people who could otherwise afford to pay. The wife and I usually ski Deer Valley one day a year for free because I know a guy. I'm far from the only person he hooks up, and he's certainly not the only employee who can do that. Now, that's their choice to give certain employees that discretion, but it definitely waters down the "We need to aggressively manage our bottom line" argument. Also, resorts that operate on FS leases are effectively receiving a hefty public subsidy. Not that that completely absolves the scammer, but it does make it pretty hard for me to get up in arms about someone who scores a used ticket in the parking lot so he can ski the last 2-3 hours of the day for free.

Wondering how many people here use ad blockers? Because that's actually worse - you're costing the sites you visit bandwidth, so they're actually losing money on you visiting.

Maybe a more apt analogy: How many people here have bought gear through a friend who gets pro-form or some other non-public discount? Or made a questionable return to REI?

[assman]

I'm against the practice. However, it has been my impression that for the average person (not the Martin Shkrelis and Donald Trumps of this world) financial moral standards increase in direct proportion to income. It's a lot easier being honest when you can afford it.

So your implication is that if you can't afford to ski as much as you want then you are ok to scam to achieve your goal? No sorry, I don't buy into that at all. In fact extrapolated into real life, that is the attitude that is destroying the fabric of our society. Can't afford it? Go steal it from someone because YOU deserve it

Years ago i lived near a small ski hill. I would buy a M-F pass and in those days you showed your pass and were issued a day ticket. I would ski half a day then go do my work. Almost daily I would get hit up in the parking lot for my lift ticket. Screw that. I enjoyed my time there and for that to continue the small family owned ski area needed to see a profit to exist. It got to the point where i would rip the ticket off my jacket and trash it while leaving the lodge.

[snoqpass]

resorts that operate on FS leases are effectively receiving a hefty public subsidy.

Part of the rent resorts around here pay the FS based on ticket sales so you would be cheating the FS too out of money,
BTW I like Alta...

[abraham]

So your implication is that if you can't afford to ski as much as you want then you are ok to scam to achieve your goal? No sorry, I don't buy into that at all. In fact extrapolated into real life, that is the attitude that is destroying the fabric of our society. Can't afford it? Go steal it from someone because YOU deserve it

Dude, you're the guy who's posted about repeatedly stealing cars for money.



I did something like Conundrum described when I accidentally ended up staying with friends longer than planned for money reasons. I wouldn't do it again, but at the time I thought it was ok since they refused to refund the pass after an injury and it was a couple days. It isn't something I'd do again.

I'd think RFID tickets make skiing in the lot easier but I don't know what info they tie to the ticket. Even if it's the credit card holders name that can't do too much of someone buys multiple tickets.

[Dantheman]

Years ago i lived near a small ski hill

It's been pretty well established in this thread that scamming small locally-owned ski areas with reasonable lift ticket prices is very poor form. The only real debate is about places owned by Vail, giant hedge funds, etc.

[SLCMunchie]

Most resorts here in the Wasatch are utilizing the picture checking thing. Alta has really cracked down over the years. The funny thing about Alta is its actually a town, with its own Sheriff/ Police force. Many years ago a buddy and me tried the scam on the lift. They totally pulled us aside, called the sheriff over and brought out the handcuffs. They let us go, but scamming at Alta will land you in serious trouble very quickly.

Solitude I've found is the most friendly. i bought a 10 pack of passes this year. their computer system was down, so they gave me a free pass for the day to use while they got their computers going-very awesome.

[FormerKnuckleDragger]

WB took pass fraud seriously

I was talking to one of the Extremely Canadian guides this past weekend about a similar thing. WB will flag it if a guide or ski school person rides a lift with the same person three or more times. If the guide/ski school person isn't on the clock that day, they get in some serious trouble.

[TahoeJ]

When a business provides a service and you use it and refuse to pay for it doesn't have any moral ambiguity

You completely missed my point and got it backwards. When someone creates content and you block the ads that pay for it and the bandwidth to serve it, you're doing the same thing.