What is the legality of selling tickets on EBay/Touting sites?

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Markjbloggs

Registered User
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What is the legality of selling tickets on EBay/Touting sites? I know of people who buy many tickets for major events both in Ireland and the UK only to flog them on these sites for vastly inflated prices. This used to be illegal but does anyone care anymore? Does Ticketmaster take enough care to ensure that tickets are going to genuine customers, and not these leeches?
 
Re: Ticket touting

there was a legal discussion that came up about the recently, I'l try and remember where it was. The basic conclusion was that tickets were no different to any other object sold on ebay. And if people had them and wanted to resell them at a higher price then it was nothing to with ebay.

Ticketmaster probably don't care who gets these tickets once they recieve the money. In fairness though, they have put in place certain measures such as only 4 tickets per transaction or per household.

I believe a system is coming into ireland soon whereby when you buy a ticket a barcode is sent to your mobile, and then you have to scan your mobile when you enter the venue. I don't know exactly how it works but one of the benefits is to cut down on touts.
 
Re: Ticket touting


Surely the barcode could just be forwarded to another phone.
 
Re: Ticket touting

Yeah i think they had some system in place where it couldn't be. I'm not sure of the intricacies of the system. I just read a brief overview, but the jist of it was that this could cut down on touting.
 
Re: Ticket touting

foxylady said:
Surely the barcode could just be forwarded to another phone.
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Unfortunately no, prepare for some geek talk!

There is a think called OMA DRM (Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management) and most modern phones support this to a certain extend. The most basic of form of DMA that these phones support is "forward lock" which means pretty much exactly what it says on the tin - you cannot forward on the image (barcode).

Interesting enough for this sort of business model this is another form of DMA called "separate delivery" - this means that you aquire the content and a licience, i.e. to get the content you much purchase the licence, so this means that the barcode could be forwarded and if the recieved wanted to use it they would have to buy the licence i.e. a new ticket
 
Re: Ticket touting

paddi22 said:
Yeah i think they had some system in place where it couldn't be. I'm not sure of the intricacies of the system. I just read a brief overview, but the jist of it was that this could cut down on touting.
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I don't see what the problem is with touting - if the EU is to allow a free movement in goods and services, people should be able to sell on tickets if they want to.

Ok, there is the issue of football hooligans buying tickets this way, but that is really a separate issue.

And why is it so much worse if some individual with the foresight to buy the ticket well in advance makes a few bob, compared with a huge faceless multinational raking in their service charges and commission. If the market supports the higher price, they should have charged the higher price in the first place.
 
Re: Ticket touting

Some sports organisations are taking steps to monitor ticket sales on eBay and other similar sites and cancelling any tickets they see on sale. I am aware of at least 1 major sporting event coming up in the UK where a sports organisation has been agressively doing this and appears to have been very successful at doing so.

I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but I've been told that its either of (i) using the details on the site to track down the owner and/or expressing interest in buying the ticket or (ii) issuing something to the purchaser which isnt the final ticket and so is useless to sell i.e. essentially a receipt that they have purchased a ticket - and then not issuing the actual ticket until just before the event.

Most sports organisations dont mind selling on surplus tickets at face value to other fans, but dont like people taking advantage by selling for more than face value.
 
Re: Ticket touting

The easy solution would be to implement cinema style ticketing, whereby the purchaser needs to bring the credit card (as used for the original purchase) to the event to collect the ticket on the spot. No opportunity for selling the ticket on eBay then.
 
Re: Ticket touting

And you have an extra 3 hours in the queue while they validate the credit cards.
 
The swipe of the credit card should be as quick as the barcode scan check that was done using a handheld terminal at the Marlay Park gigs this summer.
 
RainyDay said:
The swipe of the credit card should be as quick as the barcode scan check that was done using a handheld terminal at the Marlay Park gigs this summer.
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The tickets are usually printed when the credit card is swiped, as long as the card is just used to validate the tickets I agree that this system would work. There is still the problem of tickets that are purchased from a shop or given as gifts etc.
 
Purple said:
The tickets are usually printed when the credit card is swiped, as long as the card is just used to validate the tickets I agree that this system would work. There is still the problem of tickets that are purchased from a shop or given as gifts etc.
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Or purchased using virtual credit cards, where no physical card exists.
 
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