No government support for rip-offs by ticket touts in the UK

Ministers have refused to support plans to crack down on ticket touts in the UK.

The Department for Business and Trade considered proposals from the competition watchdog but decided not to implement any plans to make it more difficult for ticket touts to operate.

This has led to a campaign group which is backed by PJ Harvey and Ed Sheeran amongst others to warn that music fans will have to face continued ripoffs from ticket touts in the future.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) made suggestions that included a stop to the bulk-buying of tickets and speculative selling. Speculative selling means that the company don’t actually have the ticket to sell, but they take the money for the ticket and then try to obtain one to give to the buyer.

The CMA also said sites should be regulated and that they should be penalised or shut down if they break the rules.

However, Junior business minister, Kevin Hollinrake, said sites that can charge unlimited prices like Viagogo and StubHub could still provide a service to customers. And he said he thought it was “too soon” for legislation to be put into place.

But FanFair Alliance, the music campaign group said the government was ignoring the evidence of bad practice and that “the experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely.” The group also said that practices carried out at the expense of genuine fans, like bulk-buying and speculative selling are “rampant.”