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Your Money > Retail Bargains Articles > 10 tips to...
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By Sarah Modlock
Summer's coming - along with endless sport and music events. The wellies, the mud, the dalliances. OK, so only two of those are guaranteed at festivals. But wherever you find huge crowds of excited people buying tickets for events, you will also find rip-offs. And I'm not just talking about the cost of strawberries at Wimbledon.
For years, ticket touts shouting outside venues have made the difference between you getting into your dream event or selling on tickets you could not use. Nobody says these guys are perfect but for many event-goers, the online and phone-based re-sale ticket market is more likely to lead to heartache, with fraudsters hiding among the genuine firms and fleecing around 30,000 fans a year. The Beijing Olympics were a licence to print money for unscrupulous ticket sellers, in some cases ripping off parents of those taking part who were unable to see their son or daughter's moment of glory. Just about anything you can buy tickets for can be open to abuse, from Lords to Led Zeppelin, Glyndebourne to Lady Gaga. The frustrating thing about ticket re-sale websites is that it seems impossible to sort out the good from the very bad. Most of the sites have the same authentic look, official branding and may seem very professional at first. The problems seem to centre around those sites that are hosted outside the UK and so prove very hard for the authorities here to shut down. Hungary is a favourite safe haven as its authorities simply refuse to pull the plug on bogus sites. In other countries, web hosting companies and domain name registrars may decline requests to shut down a site but even if they agree, the fraudsters often just set up again under another name and carry on. The additional fees and mark-ups placed on tickets by re-salers are one thing - tickets for Andy Murray's matches at last year's Wimbledon with a face value of £70 changed hands on the internet for as much as £2,000 - but the sheer numbers of people being ripped-off illustrate how many are willing to pay several times face value to secure their seat. The real drama comes when you are given fakes or the tickets just don't exist, you cannot get hold of anyone and your calls and emails go unanswered. If you do get through to someone and they agree to a refund, you may never get it. Most of these sites work on the basis that once they have your cash, you won't hear from them again. These people are worse than muggers because customers trusted them. What is being done? In February this year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced plans to change the system, including a proposal for the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (Star) trade body to oversee a voluntary "code of principles" for ticketing. The aim would be that customers buying tickets from outlets displaying the Star logo would know they were dealing with reputable sellers. Although it is unlikely that the secondary ticketing market for plays, concerts and sports fixtures will be banned completely, it is expected that some 'crown jewel' events such as Wimbledon and the Grand National will have their re-sale markets closed. Ministers want promoters to make greater use of measures that have successfully prevented touts from buying up tickets for high-profile events to sell on. They point to good examples of ticket sales practice including concerts by the singer Tom Waits in Edinburgh and Dublin last July where fans were allowed to buy only two tickets each. The holders' names were printed on the tickets and corresponding photo ID was needed for fans to gain access to venues. They will encourage more football clubs to follow the example of Chelsea and Manchester United and adopt exchange schemes for fans who want to sell tickets they can no longer use. 1. Do your homework - make sure you know what the face value of the ticket is and how much any additional fees for booking, transaction and postage will cost. Most venues have online maps so you can check where seats are and make sure you are not paying for a restricted view when you have been told it's not. 2. Buy direct if possible - through the box office or primary agent, although this is easier said than done, especially if you live nowhere near the venue so cannot visit in person. If phone lines and online options for the venue show no tickets available then this is where the frustration begins. 3. Read the terms and conditions before you buy - so that you understand how you are going to receive the tickets, what will happen if they don't arrive, and what will happen if the event is cancelled, changed or you have to cancel. 4. Only do business with UK sites - if you go through a third party online, look for a secure website with the prefix "https" and for a UK-registered business address. This means that the company will be regulated by the Trading Standards Institute. If there isn't a UK phone number you can call, you should avoid them. 5. Pay via secure servers - to avoid a third party seeing any payment card details you enter online, make sure there is a small lock symbol on screen at the checkout phase of your purchase. This shows that your connection to the seller's server is secure and cannot be viewed by other site users. 6. Use a credit card - if the price of your tickets is over £100 and the event is cancelled or the promoter breaches their contract, the credit card company will have joint liability, and will have to ensure that you are fully refunded. If you're booking through an agent, the additional protection is particularly valuable, as some agents – such as SeeTickets and Stargreen and Gigantic – will not refund booking fees, even if an event is cancelled. If you do get ripped off but you paid by debit card, contact your bank as soon as possible and they may refund your money. But be warned that you give up this right when you use websites that make purchases in cash on your behalf after you pay them by card, because this is legally a cash transaction. The most notable of these is PayPal, which is the main method of payment on eBay, where you will be at the mercy of the dispute resolution service which mediates between buyers and sellers. 7. Use eBay with care - checking the seller's reputation, and insist on seeing a photo of the tickets as proof that they really have them. If you buy a ticket through an auction site bear in mind that it is not responsible for the quality of the item. For example, eBay states that where the seller is a private individual, the goods must be "as described". The goods are not legally required to be of "satisfactory quality" or "fit for purpose". Also, see tip six, above, regarding the refund chances if you pay via PayPal. 8. Consider an 'ethical' ticket re-sale site - such as Viagogo or Seatwave where no money is exchanged until after the event. But be prepared for a hefty 'matchmaking' fee - around 10% for sellers and 15% for buyers. 9. Beware of sellers who make promises that sound too good to be true - such as being able to sell cheap tickets for sold out events or offering tickets before they are officially on sale. Look at internet forums to see if others have had bad experiences and check the company's geographic address and contact numbers. 10. Get on a mailing list - venues and fan sites will usually issue dates in advance so you can be prepared. Some sites to avoid.... Guardian Money recently investigated ticket fraud and listed the following sites to avoid: • Takethattour.net Offering tickets to Take That's shows, which has links to that post office box number in Vancouver. • Tinthepark2009.net Flogging tickets to the T in the Park festival in Balado, Kinross-shire, in July. Intriguingly, this website gives a registered address in the Scottish town of East Kilbride and a local landline number (there was no one available to take our call when we rang). This address is a business centre. A search of the web indicates the site is connected to a chap called Alberto Perez in Panama. • Tinaturnertickets.net, Eddieizzardlive.com and Cliffrichardtour.com As the names suggest, these offer tickets to Tina Turner, Eddie Izzard and Cliff Richard's forthcoming shows. All have links to that well-used post office box number in Vancouver. The Cliff Richard site gives its address as St Dunstans Hill, Sutton, Surrey. • Coldplaylivetickets.net Apparently also part of Mr Perez's Panamanian empire. Previously traded as Coldplaylivetickets.com. • Downloadfestival2009.com. A slick-looking site offering tickets to the Download Festival taking place at Castle Donington. It supposedly operates out of a village in Holland. • Ticketingdirect.net and 123tickets.net Identical sites claiming to operate from an address in Vancouver though, in reality, the latter seems to be based in Edinburgh. • Also, readingfestival2009.com, leedsfestival2009.com and vfestival2009.net. They are very slick and bear a striking similarity to readingfestivaltickets.co.uk, leedsfestival.net and vfestival.net respectively, • Bookmetickets.com, allegedly operates from the same Emeryville PO box number. It offers tickets to UK gigs by acts such as Coldplay, Take That and the Killers, claims on its website to be based in New York, and takes payments in sterling and Hungarian forints. • Londonticketsexpress.com, also has links to that Emeryville PO box number, and to an address in Cyprus - but claims to be based in Hungary. It is a copy of London Ticket Shop, a Rangos website shut down by the UK government • SOS Master Tickets sold between 400 and 800 tickets to last year's V Festival and more than 1,000 to Reading and Leeds festivals, each for up to £200, but it failed to provide any tickets. Five festival money-saving tips 1. Buy essentials in advance. Turning up at Glastonbury without wellies, for example, will set you back £25 - but cost just a fiver at B&Q. If you can, find a cheap thermal and a blanket* to help stay warm at night. 2. Take in as much as you possibly can. You could save a pretty penny by buying foods that are high in energy such as nuts, chocolate and bananas*. Burgers and chips don't come cheap at these events. 3. Always keep your money and other vaulables under your pillow - not beside your bed. 4. Don't padlock your tent - it suggests to thieves that you have something worth stealing, and makes you a prime target. 5. Save on queueing time by using ATMs at night. * Speaking of Bananas, for those of you attending Glastonbury this year, beware Joe Banana blankets. If you try to wash them, they disintegrate - potentially ruining the rest of your clothes. And finally....male festival-goers in Ireland who were feeling particularly skint last year (perhaps after being ripped off) had the unusual opportunity of donating sperm in exchange for event tickets. A private fertility clinic launched a website for applicants in a pilot scheme. If successful, respondents received tickets to their choice of one of 127 European music festivals. And who said music wasn't the food of love? Useful links: |
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