Glossary of Terms

Secondary Ticket Agency

Obtain their tickets by a number of different methods from Primary ticket agencies to sell to you at a high markup

There are a number of ways that Secondary Ticket Agencies get their hands on the tickets you couldn't:

Secondary ticket agencies go online and buy tickets just like you tried and failed to, and more worryingly, they use computer software, called "Bots" to automatically buy hundreds and thousands of tickets. Many events do not allow bulk purchases, so there are checks in place to limit the number of tickets a single person or credit card can purchase which is why they employ many individuals to buy the tickets on their behalf and get them sent to their address. These tickets are sold to you at a huge premium and they don't even have them in their hands, and if this is discovered the tickets can be cancelled by the organisers of the event.
Tickets from Primary ticket agencies are allocated to them so that they can be sold on for a premium (some Secondary agencies are owned by primary ticket agencies) so you would never be able to purchase these at face value.
People no longer want their tickets, or can't go so they arrange to sell their tickets on. In our example, nobody could do this as they have only just gone on sale, which brings us to the fourth and most malicious way:
They just don't have the tickets you have just bought. They may be defrauding you of your money, or they are using a practice called "Speculative Ticketing". This is when secondary ticket agencies say they have tickets for sale but until you order the tickets and pay for them they will not get hold of them, they are speculating that they can get them, normally from other ticket touts.

Now there are other ways that they get hold of tickets, but these are the most crucial ones for you to know about.

The Ticket Safe Charts: The Good, the Bad and the Touts

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