The current men’s football World Cup in North America has put the spotlight back on ticket touting issues, with stories of fans being told at the very last minute that tickets they bought on resale platform StubHub are not in fact available, meaning they miss out on the games they planned to attend.
Those stories have prompted the US National Independent Venue Association and the Fan Alliance to again call on American lawmakers to crackdown on for-profit ticket touting - or ‘scalping’ to use the US term - and especially speculative selling, where touts advertise for sale tickets they have not yet secured - what NIVA calls ‘ghost’ tickets.
Addressing key members of Congress, NIVA and the Fan Alliance say in an open letter, “Outside the gates of World Cup games happening in eleven cities across the US, your constituents and visitors from across the globe have not been able to get into the games they have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars to attend”.
This is unsurprising, the open letter notes, because lawmakers have so far failed to ban speculative selling, despite calls for such a ban from independent venues, artists and promoters, not to mention music fans. “We warned that consumers would purchase tickets that did not exist”, the letter says, adding, “we warned that families would travel thousands of miles only to discover their tickets could not be delivered”.
Technically speaking, tickets for World Cup matches should only be resold and transferred via the official marketplace operated by organiser FIFA. However, tickets can also be resold on websites like StubHub, providing the seller then transfers tickets on the FIFA platform.
StubHub’s own guidelines state that, “when you order tickets, we’ll provide the latest date the seller expects to transfer your tickets through the FIFA Marketplace platform”.
However, it adds, “due to FIFA's security policies, tickets and barcodes may not be visible” to the buyer “until a few hours before kick-off”. It concedes that “waiting can be tough - especially for an event as epic as the World Cup”, but “rest easy knowing that your order is protected by our FanProtect Guarantee”.
Under that guarantee, StubHub promises to “do our best to get you replacement tickets” or - if that’s not possible - to “provide a full refund”. But, if tickets do not arrive at the very last minute because a seller never had them, a refund isn’t much compensation if the buyer has already shelled out a load more money on travel and accommodation.
As has happened to various people who bought World Cup tickets via StubHub, and whose experiences have been documented by NIVA and the Fan Alliance.
Congress should now introduce a US-wide ban of speculative ticket listings, the open letter says, following the lead of state-level lawmakers in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont and Nevada.
And to ensure that ban has effect, the letter proposes “fines of not less than $10,000 per listing, per day” should be introduced for anyone who posts a speculative listing once the proposed new law is in effect.
There are already proposals for new ticketing regulations working their way through Congress, including the TICKETS Act.
Although NIVA has previously expressed concern that that act would not effectively stop speculative ticket listings because it allows a get out for so called ‘concierge services’. So touts would be allowed to post speculative ticket listings providing they added some confusing language about offering a service to source tickets for future events.
The new open letter states that, because of this loophole, the TICKET Act “would still allow for the same ghost ticketing that is victimising your constituents right now across the country during the World Cup”.
The letter also cautions lawmakers about lobbying organisations that appear to represent fans, but which actually lobby on behalf of touts and touting platforms.
“For years”, it says, “a number of organisations that present themselves as advocates for fans have lobbied Congress in support of the TICKET Act while representing, partnering with, or receiving funding from major secondary ticketing interests, including StubHub, to oppose meaningful reform that would protect consumers from scalping and speculative ticketing”.
It then adds that - as the spotlight has fallen on football fans missing out on World Cup matches because of touted tickets that didn’t arrive - “many of those same organisations, including the Sports Fans Coalition, the Coalition For Ticket Fairness and the National Consumers League, among others, have been conspicuously silent as the very fans they claim to represent are crying out for help”.