Ticket tout laws?

[blindswelledrat]

In order to obtain football tickets the PHers directed me to google and ultimately everyday ticket agencies.
To my surprise they openly sell football tickets at several times their face value. For the record these are reputable agencies who appear to be doing this with impunity.
I thought this was illegal. Am I wrong?

[blindswelledrat]

Come on somebody..
Stop ignoring me- im starting to feel unwanted

[princeperch]

cant see why it would be illegal, as long as the ticket is 'transferable', they can charge what they want as long as someone is willing to pay for it?

[blindswelledrat]

Well i dont think any football tickets are transferable technically.
If it is legal why are touts outside the game shady bastards who avoid police like the plague?

[puggit]

Are they part of bundles where you pay £50 for chicken in a basket with chips?

[bigandclever]

Oh, go on then... AIUI the unauthorised sale of match tickets in a public place is illegal (1999 Football (Offences and Disorder) Act)/1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act). So, firstly, is the internet considered a public place? UEFA took some internet based ticket touts to court before the European Cup Final and won an order to cease and desist. So, secondly, I wonder whether it's done on a case by case basis, in which case I imagine it would be prohibitively time consuming and costly to go to court. So maybe the internet touts work on the principle that it's worth flouting a law and get away with it 99.9% of the time? Or the FA just don't bother taking the big boys to court?? I've been moved on at grounds by BIB before for (in my eyes) legitmately trying to pass on spares. Google throws up some stories of people arrested for doing the same, though the law is supposed to be stopping the, erm, "shady bastards" and not the 'innocent' fans.

Naturally, this is ignoring the free market economy / supply and demand argument, but if you want reasonably priced tickets for sold out matches, then go to the fans forums rather than a broker (or would that be breaking the law?!)

[hedders]

I tried ticket scalping once...

In the late 80's I bought 10 Simple Minds tickets for Wembley stadium with the sole intention of showing up and flogging them all.

The concert was sold out months before hand and evrything looked great for me to make a few hundred quid (if i didn't get done over).

All of a sudden they released 10,000 (or something) 'extra' tickets at retail prices for those who had turned up hoping to buy from the the scalpers.

And me.

I sold nine of my tickets for a fiver a piece (I think it was a net loss of £12.50 each) and went in and saw the gig, it was a brilliant concert

That was the beginning and end of my ticket business though.