Legalised touting... how is this legal?

[Rroff]

touts are scum... making a ton of money for little effort and generally ripping off customers.

While tescos, etc. are no angels - atleast they are doing something for the consumer, products are in a convenient location, they have some regulations and so on so you know you aren't getting (completely) ripped off, if the product is bad you'll get it refunded or replaced and so on.

Touts just suck up a load of tickets, charge many times the face value, put in almost no work and theres no guarantees.

I know its never gonna happen but people could stop it dead if they refused to put their hard earned cash into the hands of these scum. Think about what your doing next time you go to buy these tickets.

 

[Abraham]

Do you think the promoters/organisers of such gigs view them as anything else other than business? Basically someone is selling a product (a band's live performance). All it would take for touts to go out of business is for people as a whole to say "No, I will not pay over the face value."

Well as pointed out, they evidently charge below the price that demand would meet because otherwise the touts wouldnt be able to sell any. So while they are out to make a profit, they're not out to rip people off, the touts are.
Obviously people are never going to say, "No, I will not pay over the face value." as there are always people who want to go either regardless of cost or are willing to pay over the odds. There are plenty of controllable outlets though, like reseller websites and ebay where restrictions could easily be put and enforced.

 

[RDM]

But a band's live show isn't a necessity so people do not have to pay for it. The touts are just exploiting someone's foolish desperation. Once again we are trying to find a technical/legal solution to what is effectively a social problem.

 

[Abraham]

where is the negative to touts not being able to resell tickets?
I can see people not being able to get rid of tickets they bought genuinely and people not being able to buy tickets once a show is sold out, you just have a controlled channel for handling those, even if it's just returns to venue becoming available as new tickets. You price a penalty into returning the tickets, i.e. not refunding the booking fee, and then maybe charge a couple of quid extra for the ones that become available. Without greatly changing the current system of ticket sales you can remove any downsides to making ticket resale illegal

 

[RDM]

where is the negative to touts not being able to resell tickets?

Parliamentary time that is better spent on more important legislation? As touting is pretty much a victimless "crime" I don't really see why it needs to be legislated against.

I can see people not being able to get rid of tickets they bought genuinely and people not being able to buy tickets once a show is sold out, you just have a controlled channel for handling those, even if it's just returns to venue becoming available as new tickets. You price a penalty into returning the tickets, i.e. not refunding the booking fee, and then maybe charge a couple of quid extra for the ones that become available. Without greatly changing the current system of ticket sales you can remove any downsides to making ticket resale illegal

So someone who can't genuinely go is going to be out of pocket because of your desire to rid the world of touts. Harming them but still not actually letting any more people go to the concert than originally able.

I just don't see that legislating against people's own stupidity is a valuable use of time to be honest, especially as it covers something so unimportant as ticket sales.

 

[NickM]

Parliamentary time that is better spent on more important legislation? As touting is pretty much a victimless "crime" I don't really see why it needs to be legislated against.

A lot of parliamentary time is wasted with pointless legislation, whats one more thing?

 

[Volcs]

Do you know what else sucks, Tesco get all that milk for 40p and sell to us at 80p

The annoying aspect for me is more that the money isn't going back into the industry - it's going to some scabby **** who happens to have found a way to source tickets better than I can.

Retailers are providing a service by shipping, packaging, stocking the product in question (in most cases) where as touts are providing me with no service whatsoever.

If all tickets were sold at their estimated "ebay value" it would reduce touting considerably as the premium touts would be able to charge would be heavily reduced, but then the backlash against the music industry would be epic resulting in fewer sales until the supply and demand price came back into balance....which would then result in touts again. Damn you economics.