lilley: laws already in place to protect ticket buyers, but rarely enforced
we’ve seen the high profile arrest recently of a burlin...
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we’ve seen the high profile arrest recently of a burlington woman, denise tisor, for allegedly selling fake taylor swift tickets. a recent news release from the toronto police service stated that tisor allegedly sold fraudulent tickets worth $70,000 and is now facing a raft of charges. if the accusations are proven true, for every denise tisor, or denise blackhawk as she allegedly went by on facebook, there are countless other scammers using legit services to try to take advantage of fans — be it for taylor swift or other in-demand acts.
when melissa bought her taylor swift tickets in august 2023, those tickets didn’t actually exist — or if they did, they wouldn’t end up in her hands when the big day came a couple of weeks ago.
less than 45 minutes before the concert was to start, melissa found herself on the phone with a customer service representative from stubhub, the secondary market reseller.
like many disappointed fans, melissa wasn’t one of the lucky ones able to secure tickets when they went on sale via ticketmaster. while ticketmaster couldn’t provide tickets, stubhub offered the promise of a night with taylor swift for an inflated price.
the catch was the tickets wouldn’t be delivered until the day of the show, at least that’s what the email said. five weeks before the show, a confirmation email arrived that confirmed the tickets would be delivered as promised.
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“we wanted to inform you that your taylor swift order, will be fulfilled in time for your event!” the email read.
the email went on to say that for security reasons, all tickets were being released within 72 hours of the event.
on the night of the show, the best stubhub could do was to offer other tickets that were not nearly as good. stubhub said they tried but were unable to contact the seller.
the only two options on the table, take the new seats that were not nearly as close to the stage or take a refund and go home disappointed. while a verbal offer for financial compensation was made on the phone that night, stubhub later reneged on that offer, saying there was no record of that offer.
“stubhub is committed to providing fans with a secure and seamless ticketing experience — our fanprotect guarantee ensures that every order is 100% backed,” stubhub said in a statement.
“in the rare case of an issue, we will strive to find an equivalent or better ticket or provide a full refund. if a seller is found in violation of our policy, they can be penalized with fees up to double the cost of the ticket sold and removal from the platform.”
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stubhub insists that just 0.2% of all orders in north american within their network are fraudulent. they also state that since people selling fraudulent tickets won’t be paid, there is no incentive to make the attempt.
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yet clearly some people still do and for every 1 million ticket orders, 2,000 are problematic. perhaps it’s time to enforce the existing law.
the seller of fraudulent tickets could also be charged under ontario law. for that matter, perhaps stubhub could be, too. ontario’s ticket sales act, 2017, makes it is illegal to sell speculative tickets, meaning tickets people don’t already have in their possession.
“no person shall make a ticket available for sale if the ticket is not in the person’s possession or control,” the law states.
penalties for breaking this law range from fines starting at $10,000 and rising to jail time of up to two years less a day. despite the law being on the books, it’s not really enforced and that is the real problem, say industry insiders.
ticketmaster has invested in new technology and adopted new techniques, such as the verified fan system, to try to stop or slow scalping on the secondary market. it’s had some effect, but each step they make, the unscrupulous sellers using platforms like stubhub, seatgeek or others try to find ways around them.
one thing that would be easy to do would be to apply the law stopping sellers from listing seats they don’t have. while that is harder to do once a big show is on sale, it’s easier to do when tickets are being sold on the secondary market before they are even officially on sale.
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before tickets for the oasis show in toronto at downsview were even on sale via ticketmaster, they were already listed for sale on secondary market sites. the same happened this past week with post malone and his show that takes place next march.
people who are listing seats before the concert tickets are even available should be prosecuted and so should the platforms allowing that. this simple act would end the practise of speculative ticket selling, at least for the pre-sale time.
the law could also be updated to require that any reselling platform verify the ticket exists. many of the major resale platforms already do that with sports like baseball, hockey or basketball but refuse to do so for the lucrative concert market.
we will never completely be rid of scalpers, or the secondary ticket market as they now call it and i’m not sure we want to be. these services provide a valuable service for people who buy tickets to an event and then can’t go, and they also help those who didn’t get tickets but want them.
that said, we have to stamp out fraud, which is clearly happening.
if the industry doesn’t clean up its own mess, then government will have to.
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