Hertford event and tours company policy.

Come on, you talk as if it's a lottery buying tickets from one of the larger secondaries when it's not.  They sell hundreds of thousands of tickets for gigs all over Europe and beyond.  Whatever you say, you are not in a position to know what is happening at each and every venue every night.   So someone sold 100 tickets for one gig where you happened to be.  What an idiot (the seller, not you).  Ofcourse the secondary involved will not pay out one penny - plus obviously they have all the sellers's details which makes it that bit easier for the police.

We are talking about one criminal (or one criminal gang) targeting one gig.   For sure, they won't make a brass farthing from it, so that's one scam they won't be trying again.   In the main, when buying from one of the big four the consumer DOES get what he/she pays for.

I still maintain that if it was a big problem there would be more tales of woe on here.  Look what happened with Ticketindex.  People weren't shy to post their experiences on here.  blcevents?  (Forgive me if I've got the name slightly wrong;  I'm sure you know who I mean).  People are posting on here every day, reporting scam sites.  The reason there are so few complaints about the big four is because 99.99% of the time they get it right - or in my case, 100% of the time.

I will say it one more time - I do not care where they get their tickets from.  I don't care if they call themselves a fan-to-fan website or a promoter-to-fan website or Arthur-to-Martha website.  I don't care if they buy in tickets themselves.  I care about being able to find cheap tickets.  I care about the tickets turning up on time.  I care about the tickets being genuine.  They have never let me down.

Well, that is the oddest posting I have ever seen.  I presume you are not in an official position, so to make a statement like that indicates that you have illegally seen vital evidence pertaining to the defendant's financial status which more than prejudices any forthcoming trial.  Let's just hope no defending personnel ever log on here to read what's been written!  (It doesn't take an Einstein to work out which forthcoming legal proceedings you are pertaining to).

1) Because the guarantee in most cases falls short of the statutory rights and because it is a criminal offence to: "Present rights given to consumers in law as a distinctive feature of the trader's offer"

2) Posters on this subject = 10 (ish) Visitors to this site today = Over 17,500.  That's at 4pm so 20 thousand people a day visiting this site suggests the problem is a lot greater than the OFT figs suggest and do you honestly think Medusa would have persevered with this site if there wasn't a problem and she wasn't needed?

WooHoo! I'm no Einstein but I have a suspicion that Markland is not talking about the same Company you are (only because he was saying things like this before they left for Switzerland) Does this mean they're being prosecuted and are you acting for them? #Rhetoricalquestion ;-)

Markland hasn't mentioned any company being prosecuted - neither have I.  You are obviously talking about Viagogo.  I had no idea they had been prosecuted.  Acting for them?  In what sense?

I think you will find that the vast majority of visitors to this site are here to check the red and green lists.  I doubt if that many of them ever read the forum.

Ofcourse there is a problem - an enormous one, but it more to do with individuals setting up bogus companies rather that the big four secondary sites.

Sorry.  I really wasn't being that serious, but what's a 'defendant' in the context of a 'forthcoming trial' if it's not someone being prosecuted? and why would there be a defending personnel? You also suggested you knew which "forthcoming legal proceedings" Markland was referencing. Were you just fishing?

I totally admit that I was, with the "acting for them" Hopefully you can take it as a compliment. You have the air of someone with a lot of authority and (I suspect) more than a fair amount of legal knowledge. As for Markland, I don't think it's any secret that he does hold an 'official position'

BTW: 20,000 people a day checking the red and green lists is what I was talking about.

Chicken and egg? Were it not for the perceived legitimacy of the Big 4 there would be no breeding ground for the bogus companies. The Big4 pretend legality but they're not. I can count at least 5 criminal offences on each of their websites. They couldn't operate as they do if they worked within the requirements of the CPU.

In your own words you don't need to be Einstein to recognise that the vast majority, if not all, sellers on the Big4 are Business sellers. They are required to own up to it. They are required to display their name and geographical address. They are required to declare the income and they are definately required to stop posing as consumers.

I do recognise that this would jeopardise their chances of getting hold of the tickets in the first place but, would it not be logical to say that: if you need to break the law to operate then what you're doing is wrong?

Dusty, I'm sure I said no such thing.  I have no idea how many of the sellers are business sellers.  Can you point me to the quotation?

The majority of tickets sold come from business sellers (promoters/ticket brokers), but the majority of sellers are individuals.  This was on the dispatches programme.

Point 1) Without repeating stuff I've already said too much: Old school touts: Dodgy little characters on the corner; Students making a few extra quid. I was never a fan but the % of tickets they removed from the primary market was minimal. The big 4 run multi million pound businesses and the aim is to remove as many tickets from the market as possible in order to create an artificial shortage where there is none.  For the real fans whose computers are just too slow to compete with bots, it's heartbreaking and it's worse if you know that maybe 20-30% of those tickets will never be sold. (those prices cannot be sustained unless availability is reduced). Tickets are not priced to maximise profit. They are priced to maximise attendance. If the artist wants the tickets to be sold at £15, that's his right. He doesn't price them low so some lowlife in a suit can make millions by denying access to the fans. As I've said before there are certain things that should not be part of a free market. On a sliding scale I'm not naive enough to think that concerts rank up there with human organs, babies or fresh water but in my world it's definately a fair way above the halfway mark.

Point 2) If you buy something with the intention of reselling, then you are trading as a business. So 3 ways:

A) How many are they selling? More than the purchase limit = Business seller.

B) How soon after buying are they selling them?

C) Simple mathematics: If you can't go and want to make your money back, you first go and see if the agent will refund you. If not, you can sell the ticket on Scarlet Mist for face value. On Viagogo, (and this is a bit of a generalisation as it varies slightly according to face value) but the consumer would need to pay nearly twice the value of the ticket for the seller to break even. Viagogo not only have the most expensive post costs I've ever seen but they charge the buyer 15% + vat and the seller 10%. It's arguably the least likely place someone who genuinely couldn't attend would choose to sell their ticket.

As for the quote. Sorry again. I was only referencing the Einstein part.

@Arrgee: What they said was 95% have sold less than 10 tickets. (and 95% of sales are sold by the other 5%) 10 tickets is a hell of a lot more than you'd expect from a consumer sale and I can suggest a very good reason why they don't come back.

At first glance buying a £30 ticket and selling it for £100 looks like a way to make money. It is. For Viagogo. Cost of selling it = £42 (25% +Vat  =£30 +postage =£12) Cost of buying it? £38 inc post. Gross profit £20. So, the return for the seller isn't that great even when the ticket is priced at over 3 times the face value, and (as we've been told only 60% sell) the risk is high.

That may not be what you meant. Do you think an 'individual' is a consumer by default? Many individuals (myself included) run businesses but the distinction here is between a business sale/purchase and a consumer sale/purchase and you do not need to be 'running a business' to 'deal as a business'. If you buy something with the specific intention of reselling it, it is a business purchase. When you resell, it is a business sale.

Obviously you could pretend you didn't buy it to resell in the first place but the law has also added in 'regularity' as a distinction so even innocent resales, if occurring regularly, could be seen as a business transaction.

Just to make it absolutely clear why there is a distinction and why that distinction is important: It is because the laws that govern consumer sales and purchases are very different to the laws that govern business sales and purchases. It has been claimed that forbidding resale is not a binding term on a consumer but it most definately is binding in a B2B sale. (business to business)

The bottom line is that if someone buys a ticket from Ticketmaster with the intention of reselling, then they have agreed to be bound by the contract set out in the terms and conditions. Part of that agreement is that they cannot resell the ticket. The act of attempting to sell the ticket renders it void. Selling a void ticket and claiming it is valid is fraud.

Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200 ;-)

We'll bet our last bean you do not know which matter we are referring to

Your assumptions are actually quite disturbing, shouldn't you be dealing with facts rather than leaping to, in this case, incorrect conclusions?

For your information, we passed the initial information and evidence to Police who then started an investigation with good results, all of which was obtained lawfully

As for the figure on tickets, it is deliberately vague, there is absolutely nothing posted here that could lead to the identification of who or what is involved in this investigation, nor prejudice any legal proceedings

You really would have to be Einstein with a crystal ball to do that

What it does show is that people leaping up and down on here stating fraudsters do not get paid out are not correct

Sometimes they do, which is exaclty why they do it

Oh the touting on the streets still exists

All viagogo and the other tout platforms have done is take the worsts aspects of street touting, expanded them on an industrial scale and put them in an office fronted by a fancy website with a great deal of misleading spin to sell it to the public

The Dispatches programme "The Great Ticket Scandal" showed that

Snakeoil salesmen comes to mind

In actual fact if you look at the clip from the Noah Convention you will see that 68% of tickets advertised on seatwave were from touts

The majority of sellers might be individuals, the majority of tickets come from touts

So this tissue of lies sold to the public and politicians about the tout platforms being "fan to fan" ticket exchanges was stripped away, hence why reference to it was removed from the tout platform sites post Dispatches

A little late considering the lie is firmly stuck in peoples minds

The majority of tickets come from touts, their whole business model is reliant on touts, without touts it is highly unlikely the tout platforms would even be commercially viable

Especially as even with them they post multi million pound losses every year

What amazes us is it is transparently obvious that these tout sites have misled the public with their advertising for years

If British Telecom or Barclays Bank had done the same thing, people here would be leaping up and down demanding crucifictions

We are completely at a loss as to why people are so keen to defend them

Would people here be so keen to defend Barclays or BT if they misled the public the way viagogo and seatwave have?

How many times do you have to have their balance sheets explained to you?  They do not post losses every year.

As for companies misleading the public:  as someone else posted on here:

Do you really think we should rush round to DFS as their sale MUST end on Monday?

Barclays, BT, British Gas - you name it, they pull the wool over your eyes.  Special offers, BOGOFs, limited editions, time-sensitives sales - they're all a load of rubbish.