Ebay want their Big Day (Out)
Posted by Dave
Hello World.
Apparently the people at Ebay have gone completely mad. From the Triple J website:
In a strange turn of events Ebay is taking action to stop organisers of the Big Day Out selling their tickets - unless they stop threatening to cancel scalped tickets. Sorry – run that by me again ebay wanna stop the bdo selling tickets because the bdo won’t let ebay sell their tickets.
Basically, Ebay don’t like being told they can’t illegally sell tickets, and are adopting an “if we can’t do it no-one can” stance.
As a person who has both bought and sold tickets using third-parties such as Ebay I feel they should all just leave it be. There will always be scalpers, and there will always be people who will buy third-party tickets - Ebay or no.
4 Comments to Ebay want their Big Day (Out)
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It doesn’t really explain what Ebay is doing to the BDO organisers…
The problem is that BDO ppl want to have it both ways - they want to argue that scalping is wrong and should be fought(I agree), but want to scam ppl who have lost tickets.
The argument here is about what is being sold, is it a service (the concert) to a specific person, or is it a ticket that allows admission to a concert. If it is the former, then they should reissue lost tickets. Admittedly this is time consuming and difficult to police, but they can’t have it both ways. At the moment they’re complaining about two issues, and their arguments contradict each other.
I think the lost tickets issue is a slightly different (though related) issue. In this case, it is a matter of Ebay wanting the BDO to stop selling tickets altogether because Ebay must stop selling. It’s basically corporate whinging on Ebay’s behalf because they are finally being forced to stop what was already a semi-legal practice at best.
I think that scalping is basically a no-win situation. Large-scale sellers who buy 10 tickets and sell each for 300% profit are a blight on the whole business, however to stop them you must also stop the “innocent scalpers” - namely those people who buy a ticket 3 months ahead of time and discover they cannot attend the event. Should these people (who are usually selling a single ticket at cost) be punished for the crimes of others?
The term ’scalpers’ in it’s very nature excludes what you describe as the ‘innocents’.
My example of the lost tickets is just there to point out that BDO et. al. are just as skilled at ripping people off.
The easiest way to sort this out would be to limit each credit card to one transaction. This way only one person can buy one ticket and in that way the supply of tickets isn’t restricted to the point where demand drives prices up 300%.
This prevents people scalping, but on the flipside makes it difficult for those without credit cards to buy tickets - however, if you’ll allow me to spruik a little, this is the beauty of Visa/Mastercard debit. You get the online/over-the-phone functionality of a credit card but you use your own cash.
More specifically, one ticket on one transaction.