Details surrounding the New York Attorney General’s office investigation into the ever-increasing problem of the online ticket scalping market have emerged. A 41-page report details the legal and illegal ways that these brokers are engaging in the selling of tickets to concerts, sporting events, Broadway plays, and even the recent trip to New York by Pope Francis (which was free, mind you). While ordinary fans are searching for a pair of tickets, brokers are using “scalper bots” – a computer program that ticket scalpers use to buy tickets faster than actual humans can – to scoop up hundreds of tickets within minutes, then immediately reselling them for double the price, or more in some cases.
New Petition Urges Congress To Pass Bipartisan Bill Banning Scalper Bots
The settlement that has been reached between New York State and six individual ticket broker sites is apparently worth $2.76 million, as the sites TicketToad.com of New Jersey; Flying Falco Entertainment of California, which operates under the name Avery Tickets; Charm City Entertainment of Florida; All Events Utah; and Just in Time Tickets and A2Z Tix, both of New York, have all been found guilty of operating without a proper license.
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman spoke about the judgement, “New Yorkers deserve a fairer ticket marketplace….Our office will continue to enforce New York’s ticket laws by investigating ticket brokers who are breaking our laws, and making them pay for their illegal acts.” The settlement also requires these companies to obtain the proper licensing to resell tickets and to cease the use of scalper bots.
[image via Forbes]
According to The New York Times: “The inquiry found that TicketToad had illegally bought 520 tickets to a Beyoncé concert at Barclays Center in August 2013 within three minutes, and that Avery Tickets bought 522 tickets to a One Direction show at Jones Beach in June 2013 within five minutes.” Think about how much money those companies are making. If you sold a $60 One Direction ticket at a marked up price of $110 (and that’s reasonable for some of these broker sites), that is a $50 profit. Multiply that by 522, and that one ticket broker company just made $26,100 on one show, while essentially shutting out all of those normal fans from buying the ticket at face value.
While a dent has been made in this otherwise shady operation, along with the attorney general’s office laying out more plans to pressure the major players in the reselling of tickets, and suggesting reforms to the illegal scalper bot operation (we are still waiting on information with regards to those “suggested reforms”), there is still a long road ahead in this ongoing battle. At least we have Cash or Trade, for honest people trying to buy and sell tickets at face value.
[via The New York Times]