Ticket touting - should it be made illegal?

This morning a pair of £77 tickets for the GS game at the MS were knocked down for £560.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-WALES-V-FRANCE-RUGBY-TICKETS-/140723187654?pt=UK_Tickets_Tickets_LE&hash=item20c3c16fc6&autorefresh=true.

Even more startlingly, a couple of £80 EvI tickets went for £901 - and that's just for a game to earn second place (unless you can believe in fairy tales).
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/England-v-Ireland-rugby-tickets-17-March-2012-/220976899372?pt=UK_Tickets_Tickets_LE&hash=item33733fe52c

What's your moral judgement on people selling tickets (of any nature) at more than face value?

And is there any feasible way of preventing it?

Clearly one way would be for all tickets to be initially sold at an auction price. But that would result in even higher prices for events where demand exceeds supply at notional prices. And a catastrophic slump in revenue for sellers where event capacity outstrips demand.

I don't have a problem with it.

People don't have to buy them at such high inflated prices.

Seemingly in every major sporting event the organisers spew the same glib, empty assertion that tickets will be checked for authenticity of purchaser compared with user.

And always they fail to live up to their empty promises.

I bet no Olympic tickets will stray into the black market.

Not.

Compare these two web addresses:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WALES-v-FRANCE-2012-RUGBY-TICKETS-x-2-/270936195123?pt=UK_Tickets_Tickets_LE&hash=item3f150e4033

Seats clearly displayed and can presumably be tracked back to original purchaser.

and on WRU

http://www.wru.co.uk/eng/hospitality/buy_official.php

"There are various unscrupulous companies in the market that offer
unofficial hospitality packages and tickets for matches which are held
at the Millennium Stadium. However, what you may not be aware of is that
if you buy hospitality and / or tickets from a party who is not an
authorised Operator of the WRU, you run the risk of purchasing stolen
tickets and handling stolen goods. These tickets are sold at inflated
prices and can lead to non admittance to the Stadium in the first place
or ejection from the Stadium during the match.
The consequences of buying unofficial products can be embarrassing
and disappointing for both corporate customers and private individuals.

The Welsh Rugby union takes the issue of black-market ticketing
extremely seriously and is doing everything in its power to stop
unofficial sales through unauthorised ticket agents, unlicensed
hospitality providers and internet sites such as eBay"



But do they?

The problem isn't with people who genuinely buy tickets then can't go. The problem is with people buying tickets to events they have no intention of going to in order to sell tickets on to make money.

I have no problem with the former, but a massive problem with the latter. The latter involves contributing nothing to anyone directly nor to society at large so that you can make some money for very little effort. It is everything that is wrong with people wanting something for nothing at everyone else's expense.

The unions/clubs don't benefit because they get the face value of the ticket from the scammer and nothing else. The genuine fans don't benefit because they have to pay more.

It is actually illegal to sell tickets on, it is simply not enforced unfortunately.

If you buy tickets and then can't go put them on scarletmist.com, a web site where tickets can be sold at face value from one genuine fan who can't go to a genuine fan that can go. Or sell to your mates or whatever at face value.

screamingaddabs wrote:The problem isn't with people who genuinely buy tickets then can't go. The problem is with people buying tickets to events they have no intention of going to in order to sell tickets on to make money.

I have no problem with the former, but a massive problem with the latter. The latter involves contributing nothing to anyone directly nor to society at large so that you can make some money for very little effort. It is everything that is wrong with people wanting something for nothing at everyone else's expense.

The unions/clubs don't benefit because they get the face value of the ticket from the scammer and nothing else. The genuine fans don't benefit because they have to pay more.

It is actually illegal to sell tickets on, it is simply not enforced unfortunately.

If you buy tickets and then can't go put them on scarletmist.com, a web site where tickets can be sold at face value from one genuine fan who can't go to a genuine fan that can go. Or sell to your mates or whatever at face value.

Touts are the scum end of the free market supply/demand chain. How they operate so openly and illegally within spitting distance of police and stewards on match days (seen it at HQ and last week in Paris) without sanction baffles me. Euuuchhh!

screamingaddabs wrote:The problem isn't with people who genuinely buy tickets then can't go. The problem is with people buying tickets to events they have no intention of going to in order to sell tickets on to make money.

I have no problem with the former, but a massive problem with the latter. The latter involves contributing nothing to anyone directly nor to society at large so that you can make some money for very little effort. It is everything that is wrong with people wanting something for nothing at everyone else's expense.

The unions/clubs don't benefit because they get the face value of the ticket from the scammer and nothing else. The genuine fans don't benefit because they have to pay more.

It is actually illegal to sell tickets on, it is simply not enforced unfortunately.

If you buy tickets and then can't go put them on scarletmist.com, a web site where tickets can be sold at face value from one genuine fan who can't go to a genuine fan that can go. Or sell to your mates or whatever at face value.

This is naiive. Clubs make a profit on tickets they sell to touts. For many of them it is a large source of income and they can generate hundreds of pounds per international.

Actually it is illegal - just that no one bothers about it.

Irish Londoner wrote:Actually it is illegal - just that no one bothers about it.

Is it actually illegal by statute as a criminal offence to sell on tickets at higher than face value?

Or is it down to the event organiser to pursue civil action?

I emailed the WRU evidence of the Ebay auction of known seat numbers along with their T&Cs last Friday. (the same wording as I posted here at the time)
The stated WRU site policy says that they would respond. But unsurprisingly they didn't.

Portnoy, what the unions response would be either a slap on the wrist or is to cut off that clubs tickets that is the usual response they would have.

red_stag wrote:Portnoy, what the unions response would be either a slap on the wrist or is to cut off that clubs tickets that is the usual response they would have.

Which doesn't answer any point in the issue.

Your point is exactly that which I'd expect from a corporation - a semi-autonomic response. Big threats up front and feck-all and blah to back it up.

Portnoy wrote:

Irish Londoner wrote:Actually it is illegal - just that no one bothers about it.

Is it actually illegal by statute as a criminal offence to sell on tickets at higher than face value?

Or is it down to the event organiser to pursue civil action?

I emailed the WRU evidence of the Ebay auction of known seat numbers along with their T&Cs last Friday. (the same wording as I posted here at the time)
The stated WRU site policy says that they would respond. But unsurprisingly they didn't.

Event organiser would have to pursue it I think. It does say it on many event tickets though.

red_stag wrote:

This is naiive. Clubs make a profit on tickets they sell to touts. For many of them it is a large source of income and they can generate hundreds of pounds per international.

How do they make the money? They make no more than if they were sold directly to a fan that actually wants a ticket? Do you think the touts give a cut of their profits to the club?!

If the game doesn't sell out then they do ok out of the touts, but the touts don't tend to buy them if they aren't going to sell out as there is no point.

A tout only makes those crazy profits if someone buys the ticket.

On the point of should you pay more than face value for a ticket, if the profit is going back to a club or into a charity then I'm fine with putting 10-20 quid on the price of a ticket. I won't pay more than face otherwise.

In fact when I've got a spare ticket, I will only sell it on for face value (even though that is at a loss as I'd have forked out the ticketmaster charge). hmmm hang on a second, why do I do that?

screamingaddabs wrote:

red_stag wrote:

This is naiive. Clubs make a profit on tickets they sell to touts. For many of them it is a large source of income and they can generate hundreds of pounds per international.

How do they make the money? They make no more than if they were sold directly to a fan that actually wants a ticket? Do you think the touts give a cut of their profits to the club?!

If the game doesn't sell out then they do ok out of the touts, but the touts don't tend to buy them if they aren't going to sell out as there is no point.

Clubs willingly sell their tickets to touts, tour operators and corporations for profit. They in turn sell on the ticket for a profit.

The tout is a middle man.

red_stag wrote:

screamingaddabs wrote:

red_stag wrote:

This is naiive. Clubs make a profit on tickets they sell to touts. For many of them it is a large source of income and they can generate hundreds of pounds per international.

How do they make the money? They make no more than if they were sold directly to a fan that actually wants a ticket? Do you think the touts give a cut of their profits to the club?!

If the game doesn't sell out then they do ok out of the touts, but the touts don't tend to buy them if they aren't going to sell out as there is no point.

Clubs willingly sell their tickets to touts, tour operators and corporations for profit. They in turn sell on the ticket for a profit.

The tout is a middle man.

I would be interesting to discover whether the likes of tour operators pay the full face value of any tickets.

Corporate tickets would be difficult to analyse as money passes both ways and becomes even more convoluted because of boxes, hospitality packages etc.

As for the Ebay tickets for the GS game mentioned earlier, I've received the following reply:


Hi xxx,

Thank You for your email, and apologies that you haven’t received a reply
to your previous message.

I can confirm that the tickets you have linked to were spotted on eBay and
were cancelled.

Kind regards

Ross Tristram
Ticket Office
Welsh Rugby Union

So I am now asking them if they intend to investigate the circumstances further.

Yes it should be made illegal

I got a reply from the WRU

"


Ross Tristram

Hi Dai, The tickets belonged to a debenture holder who couldn’t attend. He passed the tickets on to his Son’s friend who subsequently listed them. The information will now go to the Ticketing Review Panel to investigate further. Regards Ross Tristram Ticket Office Welsh Rugby Union From: Dai Jones [mailto@live.co.uk] Sent: 20 March 2012 18:38 To: Ross Tristram Subject: Ticket touts re From: rtristram@wru.co.uk To: fxp@live.co.uk Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:45:26 +0000 Subject: RE: Ticket touting Ross, Thanks for your reply. Could you confirm whether any further action will be taken in this case? e.g. whether or not the initial purchaser was an individual, corporate or club and whether this tallies in any with the eBay seller? Reminder: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&hash=item3f150e4033&item=270936195123&nma=true&pt=UK_Tickets_Tickets_LE&rt=nc&si=hsfX%252BbhKuVfqGeCXiAzQ4VofqLE%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc Dai.

Dai Jones mmmm are you Welsh then

Hardly.

Maybe it was a pseudonym. Who knows?

red_stag wrote:

screamingaddabs wrote:

red_stag wrote:

This is naiive. Clubs make a profit on tickets they sell to touts. For many of them it is a large source of income and they can generate hundreds of pounds per international.

How do they make the money? They make no more than if they were sold directly to a fan that actually wants a ticket? Do you think the touts give a cut of their profits to the club?!

If the game doesn't sell out then they do ok out of the touts, but the touts don't tend to buy them if they aren't going to sell out as there is no point.

Clubs willingly sell their tickets to touts, tour operators and corporations for profit. They in turn sell on the ticket for a profit.

The tout is a middle man.

Are you seriously suggesting that clubs deliberately sell to touts? Most international games are sell outs. All the tickets would sell anyway so they are making no additional money by selling to a tout. If the game is not a sell out then any tout with a little bit of sense will not buy tickets to sell on. If they buy the best seats to sell on then they may make a profit, but these seats would have been sold anyway.

Basically, for a tout to buy a ticket he must be fairly certain he will sell it on. This means there is a high demand for the ticket. This means it would have been sold directly to a fan if the tout hadn't bought it.

On the very few occasions where the touts have incorrectly anticipated the demand they may end up buying tickets that would not have been sold otherwise, however this will be a rare occurrence.

I used to have a flat mate who would buy tickets for things like Take That, which he had no intention of going to. The tickets would sell out in 10 minutes, he would get as many as possible and then sell them on. There is no way those tickets would have gone unsold. This is broadly true for most international rugby matches, the tickets sell out. They would sell out without touts. The clubs get no extra money for selling them to touts.

Touts are absolute scum. They benefit no-one and aim to make a profit at genuine fan's expense.

Haven't read all posts, my comments are based on the intial Thread title and comment.

How do you make touting illegal? It's like saying let's make alcohol illegal. That was obviously tried and it heralded one of the most violent periods in American history as the alcohol went underground and you sometimes ended paying a higher price than money for a taste of it

But back to tickets. Tickets are tickets and a legitimate one is a legitmate one. Now as long as there exists a human being that finds out he can't go to an event and wants to sell it on, there'll be people in the market for said ticket who mightn't mind paying over and above the face value.

If those two people continue to exist then touting will also exist; as touting is simply a wise-guy extention of the friend-in-need incident. Life is complicated enough; we don't need yet another avenue where you have to produce passports and drivers licences and retina/fingerprint scans for tickets to a game or concert...or, if you want to sell it on, the obligation of ensuring the buyer goes though another complicated ritual of identity checks and laser guided eyeball tests!

If you want to sell a ticket for face value, you are a decent, commendable humnabeing. If you want to make a fiver profit, you'll ask for the extra fiver...and on we go up and up.

Sometimes we have to just admit that life is life...some of it is good, some of it is very good, some of it is bad, and some of it is crooked.

Screaming i know for a fact they do.

red_stag wrote:Screaming i know for a fact they do.

But why do they? What's the point? I just don't see how it makes them more money unless the touts give them a cut of the money, which would seem rather unlikely.

Screaming - some clubs sell their tickets to a tout they know or trust. They dont sell it at face value. They put about 20-30 on each ticket and have made a few hundred quid for the club. The tout then sells the tickets charging more money again.

The alternative the club has is to sell them at face value to the punters. However they can make up about 50% extra per ticket by selling them to a tout at a profit.

I don't doubt that it happens, Stag (given you Know that it does) But wouldn't those transactions be illegal under laws around the sales of goods and services?

I'm sure it is and therefore another avenue is involved in the relationship between event organisers and touts - that of the look-the-other-way law enforcers.

So yes, touts aren't outside a system but very much part of it.

Yea exactly Fly. Its a case of look the other way a lot of the time.

Btw sorry about my arrogant use of "know" - just I am aware of clubs who choose to do this. They are no angels either. Touts have to be supplied with tickets and they get them from a number of sources.

red_stag wrote:Yea exactly Fly. Its a case of look the other way a lot of the time.

Btw sorry about my arrogant use of "know" - just I am aware of clubs who choose to do this. They are no angels either. Touts have to be supplied with tickets and they get them from a number of sources.

No, I didn't consider the 'know' to be arrogant, Stag. If you know, you know...you can't help knowing what you know

No bother. Im just conscious that it can be read that way and dont want to come across like that.

red_stag wrote:No bother. Im just conscious that it can be read that way and dont want to come across like that.

No, you're grand, Stag. I have the same problem with people thinking I want to be funny all the time. So even when I talk seriously, the locals are trying to find the gag in it! Oh Lord, it's so hard to be serious!

I didnt think anything of it Fly. Just I know people often dont like name dropping or this thing about "my pal works for X team and he can guarantee it" etc.

Been meaning to ask what province are you. I think its a compliment of the highest order that I cant tell which one you are.

You seriously don't know yet, Stag? God, that even baffles me.... with DOD and Sin é often breathing down my neck! Which of course I don't mind at all, I enjoy the fencing we all get up to.

Leinster.... up around Feckless's area but I think DOD thinks I'm a true-blue Dublin 4 toff and I enjoy letting him carry on thinking that so don't tell him the truth if you're chatting with him!

I grew up following Ireland - and as I often say, that's really my 'club', so Provincial success from any province is just more potential for Ireland. Maybe that's why I find it easy to laud the beauty of all Provinces, and can often be as passionate about a Munster performance as a Leinster one.

I steer clear of the Leinster - Munster threads these days. Its not worth it.

A lot of it is more like soccer forums.

red_stag wrote:Screaming - some clubs sell their tickets to a tout they know or trust. They dont sell it at face value. They put about 20-30 on each ticket and have made a few hundred quid for the club. The tout then sells the tickets charging more money again.

The alternative the club has is to sell them at face value to the punters. However they can make up about 50% extra per ticket by selling them to a tout at a profit.

Wow, that is interesting, I didn't know they did this. If I knew my club was doing it (they might be I guess!) I would be very unhappy about it. I wonder if the same is true for internationals?

The company I worked for had an arrangement with a valley rugby club where the company donated sponsor money each year (not sure how much) in return the comapny were allocated 10 tickets for each international at face value. These tickets were used for corporate entertaining customers and were not sold on, the down side from the company side is, we had to buy 10 tickets for games few people wanted to watch. These hard to move tickets were raffled or auctioned and the money was given to a local charity.

The people that annoy me are the guys selling their tickets to touts at a profit when his/her fellow supporters would love to have a ticket. I was with a friend outside Costa in Cardiff (St Mary street) and watched a big Scarlet supporter (I have seen him on TV a few times in the crowd) with a hard hat with goal posts on top, sell tickets to a tout for the Wales v Scotland match. I have given this detail as I suspect many Scarlets supporters know this guy and they may or may not approve i.e., name and shame.

I reckon someone should take on Ticketmaster. They are the biggest professional ticket-touts on the Planet.

I bought 20 tickets for a Tigers home game. We had a big 606 meet. The very 1st. Extra costs for posting abroad and admin? (I never told Portnoy this) - 100 euros. The robbing basterds!

Gibson wrote:I reckon someone should take on Ticketmaster. They are the biggest professional ticket-touts on the Planet.

I bought 20 tickets for a Tigers home game. We had a big 606 meet. The very 1st. Extra costs for posting abroad and admin? (I never told Portnoy this) - 100 euros. The robbing basterds!

Bloody hell Gibbo, you should have said. The surplus from the drinks and Indian meal kitties went to the Matt Hampson fund.

PM me your bank details and I'll transfer a tenner to cover my and Luke's TM (robbing basterds) deficit.

[ed - £15 - I forgot Uncle John]

How are ye?

Im grand pal. Ah no, It was because I lived in the Dam. They wouldnt send the 20 together as they were ordered in 3 blocks?? So had to pay Fedex for 3 packages instead of 1. I think that was the main ripoff. I think they should reduce the cost for each tickets' admin, if you are obviously ordering them all in ONE transaction. But, it wouldnt allow me to online. It had to broken down into 3??

Anyway, it was my pleasure Sir. Great day at WR. I'll never forget it. Scrumpy, Rugby, whiskey, beer and an enormous amount of craic(the fun kind like).