My Law Questions: Is Scalping Tickets Illegal?Imperva: Ticket Scalping BotsFEAT: About FEATBBC News: Scalping: The teens making thousands selling consoles onlineAustralian consumer Law: Ticket ResellingCongress.gov: S.3183 BOTS Act of 2016Global Times: Air ticket scalpers gouge desperate overseas ChineseBBC News: Glastonbury tickets snapped upCBC: Canadian scalpers multimillion-dollar StubHub scheme exposed in Paradise PapersTeam USA: CHINA JAILS, FINES BEIJING OLYMPICS TICKET SCALPER, tickets are resold by scalpers on the dark web, A Deeper Look at Travel Fraud Preventing Fraudulent Ticket Reselling, Bot Detection & Mitigation Software Solutions, Bot Detection: How to Detect & Prevent Bots, We Tried To Buy Travel Tickets on the Dark Web: Heres What We Found. These tickets are bought by automated software in order to be resold at a higher price. For example, Arizona and California restrict the locations where tickets can be resold; Delaware also restricts the time they can be resold. StubHub Hln0)XJTUH]spp1M. All rights reserved. 0000008598 00000 n Your Are they going to fly to California and subpoena info on their server? One of them is. Whats more, scalpers are opportunists by nature. This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast 6 1 1 comment Top y3kman 2 yr. ago Price protection is only for medical and basic goods. One of them is ticket scalping. It is also a business model that works best when (a) as many tickets as possible get to the resale market and (b) resale prices are as high as the market will bear. The argument is based on the economic concept of allocative efficiency, which in laymans terms means that an economy functions best when goods and services are distributed to those who value them most and pay accordingly. To resell tickets they need to receive documented permission from the original vendor. There have been no prosecutions in Nashville since the law took effect in 2008, according to the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk's Office. We Care2. Its well known how we got here. *xhM*,4V.I~7}%H#LQDytj0SVlRbgIZ\8q@= [G8:U8T@B ; hca9Kx~nF Having set up the required tools and scripts, as well as security measures to avoid getting caught, the scalper just needs to wait for the tickets to go live at which point the software will buy them in bulk, within seconds. WebStates like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri ticket scalping is illegal. For example, if a scalper gets a first warning on a Sunday, the process begins again on Monday. In this case, the criminal used stolen identities, which he linked to individual purchases. 0000002991 00000 n This is a day to make money, he said. The question of how to prevent ticket scalping is a complicated one, because it comes in various guises and concerns several different industries. For example, CBC writes that he automatically bought 310 tickets to three Adele concerts, and resold these for a whopping $52,000. 0000004833 00000 n Of course. The antitrust arguments levied against Ticketmaster today by secondary ticketing companies like SeatGeek are a case in point. State Laws Against It - My Law Questions Resale sites have a long history of complaining about anything that might lessen the flow of tickets to the resale marketplaceand of lodging those complaints without regard to obvious consumer interests like reducing fraud. With the recent passage of House Bill 2420, the Tennes-see General Assembly ventured back into As James Carville might say, Its the tickets, stupid! All the rest, including the antitrust-flavored attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, are just camouflage for the one thing that the resale sites want: government intervention to keep tickets fully transferable. Law, Products It doesnt matter that we commonly say that we bought the ticket. 0000004745 00000 n Ticket scalping is illegal for all or for some types of events in the United Kingdom, [12] Sweden, [13] Australia, [14] Israel and parts of Canada. Violation of the law is a class A misdemeanor punishable by $500 per ticket, or any profits made from each instance, whichever is higher. They make a superficially alluring argument that resale is fan-to-fan exchange among consumers who purchased a ticket at face value, as a result own it, and should therefore have the freedom to resell it without interference. The offense of scalping is most commonly classified as a misdemeanor, with penalties ranging from fines and/or up to one (1) year in jail. Taking advantage of the excitement surrounding the Olympic Games, the Chinese national spent 230,000 yuan (USD 34,000) to book 527 tickets to various events using the online ticketing portal. Why isnt scalping illegal She then taught English as a foreign language for eight years in the Czech Republic. In North Carolina, as well as many other states, reselling tickets for more than $3 over face value, what many refer to as scalping, is illegal but only in person. Ticket Scalping is the practice of selling tickets to popular entertainment events at prices which greatly exceed the established price for those tickets. People v. 0000001594 00000 n WebIt is only regulated by employees of the License Bureau who may ticket you if they see you. ?~zd*}9j5___X=Xc_Zd c3 \k1&<0_'2 m=LR CCr ,VVJLLQ !# ]&()z'jw30Ua@-YWsoI- ExM:R5rha62]f!hzw*Q@P"3ZPAyA\ B,S[z|;4Pb)]'6iN(c6'to:H3M;7VZj)>nS9bkT`JQ nk*DIH EX1qZ)[L$^19t'1KJXm/+>Oy~yn/F,2'h? RS (This may not be the same place you live). Complaints eventually lead to reputation loss and public relations crises. Ticketing industry characteristics that appeal to scalpingbots: The legitimacy of the ticket scalping situation is different across the world. Tickets to live entertainment events are one of the few products that are regularly priced below their market value. It is aimed at the instant mass acquisition of tickets to resell them at a higher price and generate a profit. 0000010487 00000 n You can book and pay for three nights at a hotel, but you cant turn around and sell two nights to someone else. Scalping is a crime with no victim, as long as the tickets are not counterfeit of course. Let's make a change Tennessee and make scalping illegal. The antitrust noise coming from resale sites and their Astroturf advocacy groups is about one thing and one thing only: protecting the flow of enough tickets to the secondary market to support Viagogos $4 billion purchase price for StubHub, Vivid Seats $1.5 billion market cap, and SeatGeeks aspirations to go public with a similar valuation. Law, Insurance You can unsub at any time here. This is an argument of convenience, not substance. 0000003426 00000 n In some places its illegal to resell tickets above a certain price limit or if you dont have a business license for that kind of trade, in others it isnt. In the case of scalping bots, strong script and bot detection and mitigation measures will certainly help. Quebec resident Julien Lavalle was reported to use bots to rapidly purchase tickets to entertainment events across the world. So, if an artist or team wants to restrict or condition resale for tickets to their shows, they can do that; the venues will happily accommodate that, just as they let the artists and team pick price points and availabilities. Ticket scalping Those improperly acquired tickets then go on sale on secondary ticket marketplaces that make no genuine effort to determine the provenance of the tickets. We can conclude that in most states, scalping is not illegal per se, about 16 states make it illegal, and four have municipal laws prohibiting scalping. By signing, you accept Care2's Terms of Service. is Ticket Scalping Illegal Tickets issued by a charity may not be resold for more than $1 above their face value. Both will use Ticketmaster Face Value Exchange, which allows fans who cant attend the show for some reason to sell their tickets at the price they paid. So you would most likely be fine. Web(3) The legislature finds that the conduct described in subsection (1) of this section vitally affects the public interest for the purpose of applying the consumer protection act, chapter 19.86 RCW. However, even WebSpecifically, there are seven states where scalping is illegal because anyone who is selling or reselling tickets needs a special license (New York, Alabama, Georgia, New Jersey,