Brisbane Times story: ‘Online scalpers bad medicine for music fans’, December 2010
My first story for brisbanetimes.com.au. Excerpt below.
Online scalpers bad medicine for music fans
A ticket scalping website continues to operate in defiance of Queensland law, a week after 100 music fans were left stranded when their tickets to Bon Jovi’s Brisbane concert were cancelled.
Suncorp Stadium staff cancelled all tickets purchased by TicketFinders.com.au to last week’s sold out Bon Jovi concert after being alerted by two customers claiming to be ripped off by the company.
The Sydney-based website’s operators continued to list tickets for sale on the day of the concert, despite being notified by customers that their tickets had been cancelled.
While the band’s fans are understood to be out of pocket for the tickets, both Queensland Police and the Office of Fair Trading say they remain powerless to investigate the company without official complaints.
Meanwhile, TicketFinders.com.au continues to flout the law.
Queesland legislation passed in 2001 as part of the Major Sports Facilities Act states that it’s unlawful to sell tickets for events held at eight Queensland venues – including Suncorp Stadium and the Brisbane Entertainment Centre – for above 10% of their face value.
Last night, TicketFinders was listing ‘category A’ tickets to April’s Justin Bieber concert at Brisbane Entertainment Centre for $300, despite their $95 face value.
Bad medicine
Two disgruntled TicketFinders customers, Steve Taylor and Julia Foster, discovered the website in early July after Googling “Bon Jovi Brisbane tickets”.
The Palm Beach couple said they ordered two $299 ‘diamond class’ tickets from the website, the day after tickets went on sale through the concert’s official ticketing partner, Ticketmaster.
Initially wary, Mr Taylor said he rang and spoke with representatives from the website on several occasions before paying, “just to reassure ourselves that we weren’t throwing $600 away”.
But when their tickets arrived four months later, their face valued was clearly labelled at $99 each, and the location of the seats was much further away than the ‘diamond class’ they’d requested.
Mr Taylor said he called TicketFinders, assuming he’d been sent the wrong tickets.
“They virtually laughed in my face and told me to get stuffed,” he said.
Mr Taylor’s next step was to contact Suncorp Stadium and report the situation. The venue’s response was to ask for the tickets’ barcode, and soon after, all tickets purchased by that seller – around 100 in total – were cancelled.
For the full story, visit brisbanetimes.com.au.
This story came about after the couple quoted, Steve and Julia, commented on my last blog entry about ticket scalping, for my Junior ‘issues’ story in October. Thanks for your help, guys.
Also of interest: this was also the first time I was told by an attempted interview source to “go fuck myself” and that, as a journalist, I’m “the lowest of the low”. Read the story, and see if you can work out who might have said that to me.