TICKET TOUTING-UNFAIR PRACTICE OR AN ENTERPRISE CULTURE

Ticket Touting-Unfair Practice or an Enterprise Culture



Ticket Touting

Internet auction sites such as eBay are colluding with ticket touting gangs to obtain seats for top sports events and concerts, which are then sold to fans at rip-off prices, an inquiry by MPs has found.

Web-based black market ticket agencies collaborate with rings of touts who obtain large numbers of seats then sell them online, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee will claim next month.

A report will accuse eBay and similar 'secondary ticket agents' such as Viagogo and Seatwave of making huge profits by exploiting fans' readiness to pay over the odds for sold-out events. This weekend eBay was advertising more than 8,000 tickets to see the Spice Girls and Six Nations rugby matches. The cross-party group of MPs will demand a clampdown.

The MPs' report reveals the willingness of some secondary agents to offer for sale tickets for events that have not yet been announced or for which tickets have not gone on sale, such as the FA Cup Final, a so-called 'futures market'.

The MPs are frustrated that secondary sellers will not disclose how many tickets they secure from particular sources, fuelling concern that they get large numbers from individuals. The committee is also concerned about the websites' practices of allowing ticket sellers to remain anonymous and about 'limited user agreements' which allow touts to disguise their identities.

The All England Club, which runs Wimbledon, and the Rugby Football Union, are among sports governing bodies which have written to eBay complaining that carrying tickets for sale, in breach of the original terms and conditions, prevents them from cancelling the ticket and reselling it at face value.

Music promoter Harvey Goldsmith called eBay 'the biggest touts in the world'. They and similar unlicensed sellers let down fans by selling tickets that never arrive or are forgeries.

'People think that eBay are an honourable organisation. They are rip-offs,' he said. 'EBay is such a strong brand people believe that when they transact with it they will get what they pay for. But eBay are the enabler that allows fraudulent transactions for tickets to take place.

'It's not just eBay, but they are the leaders because they're the biggest. Other websites are the same. There's no guarantee of the delivery of the ticket and no chance of money back if there's a problem.'

About 100 people who bought seats for last week's show by Bruce Springsteen in London's 02 arena from eBay and other websites were denied entry when their tickets were found to be forged, and about 100 were barred from attending the previous week's Led Zeppelin reunion concert, said Goldsmith.

'There's a huge criminal element involved in this business. They send hundreds of people out to buy tickets at the venues or over the phone, then have a cache of tickets they sell for as much as they can through these secondary agencies. They are taking total advantage of the gullible public who ...