Disney is starting to crack down on those who beat the FP system

[AuburnJen 777]

According to wdwnt.com, those who abuse the Fast Pass system will now get their accounts locked.  Here is the story:

http://wdwnt.com/blog/2017/06/disney-world-cracking-fastpass-cheating-will-begin-locking-guest-accounts-abuse-system/

Disney will soon be turning on a validation system of sorts for FastPass+ usage inside of the Walt Disney World theme parks.

A term dubbed “In-Park Validation” on internal documents, this phrase means the validation of park admission and entry for the day before allowing FastPass+ usage. Guests “in the know” for the past few years have learned a loophole in the system that allows bookings using the in-park FastPass+ kiosks with expired tickets or by using a second ticket on their account to book another set of FastPass+ for the day, but not actually using the ticket to enter the theme park. Basically, tickets not used to enter the park could be used to obtain valid FastPass+ reservations.

There is a similar loophole with Cast Member passes as well, where they have 3+ “Guest Passes” to allow their family and friends into the park, but limited restrictions on FastPass+ booking and usage without redeeming admission.

Another issue that’s been plaguing the parks has been 3rd party tour guides. These are the unofficial tour guides people are finding through numerous Disney fan sites, Craigslist, and more. These guides promise FastPass+ usage for all the attractions for their paying clientele, which means their employees rope-drop the park with these handfuls of expired tickets and cards to book the major attractions first thing in the morning at the FastPass+ kiosks. This is all combining to a few people holding FastPass+ options from thousands of folks who are paying admission that day and now cannot find anything they want available.

This in-park validation system will check to ensure that a guest used an active ticket for admission before redeeming a FastPass+. If you didn’t, the Cast Member at the FastPass+ line at any attraction can see this and deny you entry. Repeated attempts will lock MyDisneyExperience accounts from utilizing the FastPass+ booking option, which can be a serious deal for those abusing the system. Guest Relations will be able to unblock accounts if the behavior was deemed non-abusive.

This new policy is slated to rollout within the next few weeks at Walt Disney World. Stay tuned for a more definite date.

article and photo credit: Tom Corless and wdwnt.com

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

And not a word about cracking down on those who book "throwaway" reservations at the Fort.

There will always be loopholes and those who exploit them.

How many years has it taken Disney to finally start cracking down on these obvious cheats?

How many more years will it take for them to close the "throwaway" campsite loophole?

TCD

[keith_h 420]

It is good to see they are doing something about FP abuse. I don't know why they didn't use entrance validation to begin with but its better late than never. Hopefully it will make it easier to get a preferred FP time. 

[DaveInTN 3,247]

What the heck??  Of course they make this change after I've spent considerable money hiring a disabled elderly dwarf tour guide who has promised me unlimited fastpasses so my little princesses don't have to stand in line with the common folks.  Sheesh.    

[ependydad...Doug 176]

1 hour ago, keith_h said:

 

It is good to see they are doing something about FP abuse. I don't know why they didn't use entrance validation to begin with but its better late than never.

 

Agreed- I was always surprised the system didn't check this.

I'm curious if you'll still be able to swap out FastPasses for other people. My wife uses the accounts of friends who have APs to book FastPasses. Once our 3 FPs a day are used up, she'll swap the riders from them to us. Since we had admission into the park- it should be legit.

[ceemike...Mike & Judy 50]

Back when dinosaurs roamed Central Florida and Disney issued paper fast passes, I got up real early one morning (probably 8 or 9) and hustled over to Epcot to get Soarin' fast passes for everyone in our group. I had all of our admission tickets with me, and I hoofed it all the way back to The Land, only to find that I could get just one fast pass. According the CM at the fast pass machine, only tickets that had been used for admission to the park that day would work in the fast pass machine. Sounds like In-Park Validation to me. 

So now, after Disney spends millions of dollars to upgrade to the FastPass+ system, Magic Bands, My Disney Experience, etc., they're just now getting around to adding In-Park Validation?  What a bunch of Dumbos. 

[AuburnJen 777]

1 hour ago, DaveInTN said:

What the heck??  Of course they make this change after I've spent considerable money hiring a disabled elderly dwarf tour guide who has promised me unlimited fastpasses so my little princesses don't have to stand in line with the common folks.  Sheesh.    

See, someone reported you after all this time, lol

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

What the heck??  Of course they make this change after I've spent considerable money hiring a disabled elderly dwarf tour guide who has promised me unlimited fastpasses so my little princesses don't have to stand in line with the common folks.  Sheesh.    

Did he also promise you an ooey gooey cinnamon roll? I'm just sayin his promises may not be worth much. Have you sent your money yet? What is his refund policy?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Did he also promise you an ooey gooey cinnamon roll? I'm just sayin his promises may not be worth much. Have you sent your money yet? What is his refund policy?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

No, but he did promise a foreign Wal-Mart field trip. Legit?

Sent from my handheld doohickie

[Travisma 1,317]

Funny, Busch Gardens has been doing this for quite a while with their monthly AP bonus's.  If your pass isn't scanned in, you can't get your gift.  We tried once to get my granddaughters Busch bucks because it was the last day to claim them, but when we gave them her pass and since she wasn't scanned into the park they wouldn't give it to us.

Also, we went to Adventure Island and the scanners and finger readers were gone!  The employee at the gate used a hand held scanner, then asked if he could take my picture to add to my pass for future visits.  Not sure if Busch is doing that yet or not. Our credit union does the same thing, no ID needed when you do a transaction at the counter, you give then your account # and you picture pops up on their screen.

 

 

 

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

No, but he did promise a foreign Wal-Mart field trip. Legit?

Sent from my handheld doohickie

Well that depends. All foreign Walmart trips are legit as long as you are being transported in a large blue Ford passenger van with a Mickey Mouse and 6 Minnie Mouse window decals. You may need to borrow your van from its new owners.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

15 hours ago, ependydad...Doug said:

I'm curious if you'll still be able to swap out FastPasses for other people. My wife uses the accounts of friends who have APs to book FastPasses. Once our 3 FPs a day are used up, she'll swap the riders from them to us. Since we had admission into the park- it should be legit.

That's a good question.  Since this is a new feature on MDE as of the last update, I think it will stay, and leaves a big loophole open.  But we will have to see if that's true.

TCD

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

18 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

How many more years will it take for them to close the "throwaway" campsite loophole?

TCD

The difference is that Disney gets paid for throwaway sites so.... yeah, no incentive there to change anything. 

15 hours ago, ceemike...Mike & Judy said:

So now, after Disney spends millions of dollars to upgrade to the FastPass+ system, Magic Bands, My Disney Experience, etc., they're just now getting around to adding In-Park Validation?  What a bunch of Dumbos. 

Right?!? How was this not part of the system from Day 1?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

31 minutes ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

The difference is that Disney gets paid for throwaway sites so.... yeah, no incentive there to change anything. 

That's not how the scam works anymore.

A lot of the throwaway campsite crowd has moved on to booking the campsites to get 10 free MagicBands and 60+ days of FP+ booking.  Then they cancel the reservation, and keep the MB's and FP+'s, and get their deposit back!  Not only does Disney get no room revenue, they are out the cost of manufacturing and shipping 10 MB's. And Disney can't figure out how to stop that?  It seems like it would be pretty simple to cancel the FP+ reservations and institute a charge for the MB's and deduct that from the deposit.

TCD

[keith_h 420]

2 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

That's not how the scam works anymore.

A lot of the throwaway campsite crowd has moved on to booking the campsites to get 10 free MagicBands and 60+ days of FP+ booking.  Then they cancel the reservation, and keep the MB's and FP+'s, and get their deposit back!  Not only does Disney get no room revenue, they are out the cost of manufacturing and shipping 10 MB's. And Disney can't figure out how to stop that?  It seems like it would be pretty simple to cancel the FP+ reservations and institute a charge for the MB's and deduct that from the deposit.

TCD

They could eat the cost of the bands and still cancel everything tied to it. In fact I'm surprised they don't. 

[djsamuel 322]

29 minutes ago, keith_h said:

They could eat the cost of the bands and still cancel everything tied to it. In fact I'm surprised they don't. 

I thought all fast passes and dining  reservations made in association with a lodging reservation are now canceled when a resort reservation is canceled.  Maybe I am hallucinating common sense.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

21 minutes ago, djsamuel said:

I thought all fast passes and dining  reservations made in association with a lodging reservation are now canceled when a resort reservation is canceled.  Maybe I am hallucinating common sense.

Nope. The cheaters get to keep all their FP's and all their Dining Reservations. There's a really long thread on that dreadful site where the cheaters gloat about this.  I figure that Disney is OK with this because it means that the cheaters will at least be paying for park admission and the meals they reserved.  And, I think that most of them still pay for at least one night so they can get two days of parking and EMH's.

TCD

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

 

1 hour ago, djsamuel said:

I thought all fast passes and dining  reservations made in association with a lodging reservation are now canceled when a resort reservation is canceled.  Maybe I am hallucinating common sense.

I thought they'd closed that loophole long ago too - yeesh!!

Again, for the bazillions spent on implementing the whole MM+ system, you'd think these would have been some pretty basic components.

1 hour ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Nope. The cheaters get to keep all their FP's and all their Dining Reservations. There's a really long thread on that dreadful site where the cheaters gloat about this.  I figure that Disney is OK with this because it means that the cheaters will at least be paying for park admission and the meals they reserved.  And, I think that most of them still pay for at least one night so they can get two days of parking and EMH's.

TCD

Yeah but you'd think the $ difference between someone that pays for one weeknight tent site to scam some FPs and someone that can't book a holiday weekend of 3 or 4 days or more (at 3 times the price) because of the cheaters would be incentive enough to fix it.  Then again, it might not be enough money on the table for Disney to worry about if the fix to the system is significant. 

[AuburnJen 777]

There was another article I found this morning.  I will just add it to the thread.  

http://www.wdwmagic.com/other/mymagicplus/news/07jun2017-effective-today,-disney-is-enforcing-fastpass-usage-terms-and-conditions.htm

Beginning June 7 2017, Disney will be strictly enforcing the FastPass+ terms of usage to make the system fairer for everyone.

 

FastPass+ kiosks

 

In particular, the rule regarding FastPass+ reservations only being made on tickets used for admission into the park will be enforced. 

From the official Disneyworld.com website, the rule states:

The valid theme park admission associated with your Site/App account and used to make FastPass+ selections must be the same valid theme park admission that you will use for entry into the park on the day the FastPass+ selections are redeemed.

If you have previously made FastPass+ selections on tickets not used for theme park admission that same day, your My Disney Experience app may be temporarily locked, and the app will prompt you to speak to guest relations or called the My Disney Experience Support Center.

Continued attempts to make FastPass+ reservations with tickets not used for admission that day may result in permanent loss of access to FastPass+.

You can read the full FastPass+ terms and conditions here.

The enforcing of this rule comes as abuse of FastPass+ has become widespread, with visitors using friends tickets, expired tickets, and other methods to obtain more than the allowed amount of FastPass+ allocation per day.

article and photo credits: wdwmagic.com

[Travisma 1,317]

Now to see if it makes a difference andif there was really that much abuse.

[keith_h 420]

1 hour ago, AuburnJen said:

expired tickets

How could anyone allow an expired ticket to be used for anything related to the parks? This is just poor programming but I guess that is par for the course at Disney.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

1 hour ago, AuburnJen said:

The enforcing of this rule comes as abuse of FastPass+ has become widespread, with visitors using friends tickets, expired tickets, and other methods to obtain more than the allowed amount of FastPass+ allocation per day.

 

 

On 6/5/2017 at 4:54 PM, ependydad...Doug said:

I'm curious if you'll still be able to swap out FastPasses for other people. My wife uses the accounts of friends who have APs to book FastPasses. Once our 3 FPs a day are used up, she'll swap the riders from them to us. Since we had admission into the park- it should be legit.

 

Sounds like that practice is being eliminated too.  

[Travisma 1,317]

So it seems like as long as a MB has scanned thru the front gates, you can use a FP.

My kids usually will book a FP for everyone in the group.  So if someone doesn't want to go, another one of us in the group  should be able to go more that once by switching MBs.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

49 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

 

 

Sounds like that practice is being eliminated too.  

Actually, what Doug is talking about may still be allowed, because you can assign a FP+ to the account of someone who is in the park with a valid ticket before it's used.  If that is still allowed, then the FP+ will be used by a guest who is in the park with a valid ticket. 

23 minutes ago, Travisma said:

So it seems like as long as a MB has scanned thru the front gates, you can use a FP.

My kids usually will book a FP for everyone in the group.  So if someone doesn't want to go, another one of us in the group  should be able to go more that once by switching MBs.

I think that is still going to be OK.  They don't care who actually uses the FP.

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

23 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Actually, what Doug is talking about may still be allowed, because you can assign a FP+ to the account of someone who is in the park with a valid ticket before it's used.  If that is still allowed, then the FP+ will be used by a guest who is in the park with a valid ticket. 

That could be.  I read Doug's post as meaning that they book FP's to the AP of a friend who is not visiting the parks that day, and use those.  Perhaps I read it wrong.  I don't understand all of the ins and outs of the MDE system, accounts, the way things are linked, etc.