So to give a bit of background info: I have a difficult relationship with my sister but a lovely relationship with her 10 year old daughter.
My niece is a massive Taylor Swift fan and is desperate to go to one of her concerts. I only found out she was a fan in the past few weeks after my DH and I visited Singapore during her ERAS tour (not to see her, just to visit the country) and my niece sent me messages asking if she could come out to she us and go to see Taylor Swift.
Upon our return we hosted all the family for Mother’s Day (including my sister, her husband and their three kids). I mentioned my nieces texts to my sister and she told me my niece was desperate to see Taylor Swift and had asked for tickets to her concert for her upcoming 10th birthday, but they had been unable to secure them.
Whilst they were at my house I looked up tickets but the cheapest we could find them for were £620pp on a resale site, and my sister wrote this off as too expensive. My husband and I don’t have children and could have paid for 2 tickets but money has always been a touchy subject for my sister and I didn’t want to step on her toes so I said nothing.
Fast forward to today: I follow a couple on socials who I don’t know but who have a holiday cottage I’ve looked at staying at previously. The woman who owns the cottage posts that she is having to sell 4 tickets for a date in June to
the Taylor Swift concert in Wembley. I messaged her asking for more details and to establish if it was legit. She came back to me with details of the seat locations and said she had paid £150 per ticket and wanted to recover this. She said she would only be willing to do the transfer via the ticket master transfer system, so it seemed fairly legit.
I called my sister and updated her on the situation. My sister doesn’t like attending concerts so I told her I would happily pay for a ticket for me and my niece and take her to London for the weekend but I didn’t want to exclude my sister and asked if she’d like to come with us. My sister said she wouldn’t, because she hates concerts, but stated that her husband ‘wouldn’t allow me to take their daughter by myself because he wanted to take her himself’. I asked her how he’d feel coming with me and his daughter but she said he’d feel awkward, so I said I’d try to get all four tickets and then my sister could come if she changed her mind, or I’d offer the other ticket to my husband or to my other sister. She seemed fine with this but made it clear that if it turned out to be a scam she wouldn’t be paying me anything. I told her I didn’t expect a penny and would happily take on the £600 risk.
I continued discussions with the person selling the tickets and the got a call
from my sister a few minutes later saying her husband had said he wanted me to buy the tickets but I wasn’t allowed to give them to my niece as a present from me because he wanted it to be from him, and that both of them were now planning to go, so if I wanted the other ticket it would be on the understanding I’d be going by myself with them and their daughter. I told her I understood but that I’d just pass on the details of the person I person I was purchasing then from and let her sort out the purchase. She said she wasn’t willing to do this because she didn’t know the person. I explained I didn’t really know them either but had been willing to take on the financial risk, but didn’t think it was fair to expect me to do this if I was only getting one of the four tickets especially if I didn’t get to give them to my niece for her 10th birthday and had to find another gift. She lost her shit and screamed at me that she didn’t think it was fair for me to take over and take credit for the tickets when it’s her daughters 10th birthday. I ended the call and was so upset. I just wanted to do something nice for my niece. I don’t regard this as taking over and just thought my sister would be happy if I could secure tickets for much less that the resale sites. AIBU for thinking this way?? Should I have taken on the risk of it being a scam and purchased all 4 tickets and allowed them to give them to her?