Crackdown on ticket scalpers

Price caps on resold tickets are among measures announced by the government to finally rein in ticket scalpers.

We’ve been campaigning for a clampdown on the ticket resale industry and are welcoming the proposed changes.

Our 2017 investigation, with Australian consumer organisation Choice, found many people had been taken for a ride by ticket resale websites.

Of the 1051 consumers who provided information to our investigation:

• 75% paid more than the face value of the ticket
• 56% were charged extra fees on top of the ticket price
• 15% didn't get the seat promised
• 11% paid for tickets that never arrived
• 8% ended up with fake tickets, and
• 3% were turned away at the door because the venue wouldn’t honour their ticket.

Introducing a price cap would help protect consumers from being ripped off by websites selling tickets at inflated prices.

It would also cut scalpers out of the market, while ensuring people with genuine reasons for reselling a ticket could do so.

Price caps have recently been introduced in New South Wales. Rules there prohibit anyone from reselling a ticket to an event for more than the original price, plus transaction costs. Transactions costs are capped at 10% of the original ticket cost.

Other measures announced here include requiring sellers to display specific information about their tickets and a ban on ticket-buying bots, which are used to buy large quantities of tickets that are resold to consumers at huge mark-ups.

Public submissions on the proposals close on 18 April, 2019.