Amrik Gill Jailed for the 4th time!

 To be accurate, none of the big four have ever sold a ticket that is invalid or counterfeit. That's not to say that someone selling on one of these sites hasn't tried it on.
But where are all the complaints about them? Why don't people post them on here? They certainly aren't shy about complaining about other sites.   In fact there are people complaining about this site on other forums - why are they so shy about the big 4?

Markland seems to on your behalf -  Today 13:46 "we've repeatedly stated there are small tout sites out there that never ever cause a problem"

I assume it's not the royal we.

"Ackerman people tend to read the last few posts of a thread and the link tends to get pushed back a page or two so new readers won't have a clue what we are referring to"

So, you are basically saying that your opinions have to be the last word on a thread.......because? Do you think they are any more valid than anyone elses? Not the most democratic way of contributing to a discussion forum, but there you go.

"As for security "stealing" tickets, sorry but that is incorrect, advice from Police is to retain the ticket as evidence and process it as such

Not sure if you realise but when invalid or counterfeit tickets were given back to people in the past, some used to go and resell them?

So retention of what may well be valuable evidence is the correct way for security to act"

See the last thread on "Stewarding/Security". Unfortunatly, a lot of security staff have no idea of the law and act as if they have special authority. They do not. At the end of the day, they are ordinary members of the public.

I would have thought that if they thought a crime had been committed the correct procedure would be to call the police and they could retain the evidence. Or if the security guard thought there was a chance that someone else would try to use the ticket he could always take the details of both the ticket and the ID of the first person who tried to use it.

[quote name='nancyhaven' date='11th May 2012 15:10 post='1~202696'#] Nobody is expecting you to recommend secondary sites - this is your site and you must run it as you please.

But surely you don't mind someone with a different opinion (and perhaps a different experience) posting on the forum? It's not to influence anyone - it's just to give a different perspective. [/quote]

Nope,

They dont want different opinions on here. Its our opinion or the highway opinion Nancyhaven

I learnt that the hard way many months / last year ago when I put forward different views.

Don't take it personally, just how it is!

All I can tell you is the advice that was given by Police on exactly this subject, which was to secure the evidence

And if thats what they state thats what gets done

I suspect they know what they are talking about

Ackerman

As people keep pointing out, these are platforms and, according to what they tell everyone, they do not sell tickets themselves

Now whilst everyone now knows they do, in fact, sell tickets themselves, even the tout platforms are highly unlikely to be stupid enough to sell counterfeit or invalid tickets as their own knowingly

People selling counterfeit tickets and invalid tickets through their sites is another matter and does happen regularly

Something else you will find is that if Police received a report of 1 or 2 tickets that are counterfeit or invalid it is unlikely to spark a major investigation

it is very difficult to get 1 or 2 counterfeit or invalid tickets investigated

As for security not having the power to keep control of counterfeit tickets, or fraudulent tickets, I would suggest you ask the Police about that

We checked again today and as long as they are passed to Police as evidence there is no offence

And nobody said security had extra legal powers

You would be surprised what powers in law everyone enjoys

"So retention of what may well be valuable evidence is the correct way for security to act"

OR

"Something else you will find is that if Police received a report of 1 or 2 tickets that are counterfeit or invalid it is unlikely to spark a major investigation

it is very difficult to get 1 or 2 counterfeit or invalid tickets investigated"

Markland, you are contradicting yourself with the two statements above.
Either it's valuable evidence, or it's unlikely to spark a major investigation.  Can't be both!

If it's the second, then why don't these security goons just let the poor punters keep the tickets so they can obtain a refund and also, by giving them the opportunity to return the tickets to the secondary sites it would give the site a chance to investigate further?  You keep complaining that Viagogo etc don't report these matters to the police.  How can they if they don't have any evidence to show them?

My experience (and it's only a personal one) is that the security staff at these places are so puffed up with their own self-importance that nothing else matters.  Must be the steroids.  Anyone out there agree with me?

There is no contradiction here

It does not state that 1 or 2 counterfeit tickets are never investigated, it simply states it is difficult sometimes to get 1 or 2 investigated however

From experience, counterfeit tickets are rarely produced in 1s and 2s, you are usually talking about dozens, or hundreds

The point is if fan A goes to an event and their tickets are counterfeit, they go home to lets say Carlisle, and report the matter to Police there

Fan B at the same event goes home to Cheltenham and reports it to Police

And so on with Fans C, D, E, F etc

So you end up with what Police would see as 1 or 2 counterfeit tickets in Carlisle with no link to the other reports, giving Police a distorted view of the scale of the problem

By counterfeit tickets being evidenced by security at venues, a more accurate picture is established and the true number of counterfeit tickets becomes apparent with a single report to Police

That enables Police to deploy the appropriate resources to investigate

As for the tout platforms, they do not have to have the tickets to report the crime

As for why they do not report these crimes you would have to ask them

Not getting dragged into a debate on security as this is the ticketing forum, but would be interested to read of your experience in the security section

"As for the tout platforms, they do not have to have the tickets to report the crime"

Exactly! If they are confiscated at the venue how can the buyer return them to the secondary site for investigation? That would be the sensible thing to do as the secondary site has all the seller's details.

As for my experiences:  well, I have never been refused entry because of having an invalid ticket (or for any other reason for that matter) and I have bought many, many tickets from secondary sites over the past few years, but I have seen the bombastic, supercilious attitude of many a bouncer reduce kids to tears.

The more I read this, the less sense it makes.  "A single report to Police"??  Surely, every person that tries to enter a venue with an invalid ticket is a separate report?  They have different names, different contact details and may not have all bought their tickets from the same place.  And it's so obvious why the secondary sites don't report these crimes to the police - they won't have been informed of them if the buyer thinks that he has already given all his details to someone who will pass on the information to the police.

Arkleyhall

When people go back to Carlisle, Cheletenham, or wherever, they report the crime to Police, not viagogo

They would obviously go to viagogo or whoever they purchased from/through for a refund, not to report a crime

As each crime is recorded in different parts of the country, frequently the size and scale of the criminality goes unrecognised due to the geographical spread of victims

Thats always assuming that when trying to report the crime locally victims are not told that it is a "civil matter" as has been the case, on many occasions, in recent years

The "single report to Police" would be from the venue with tickets evidenced victim by victim

Police would then contact each victim

As for viagogo and others taking appropriate action, lets agree to disagree on that one