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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-wonder-I-couldn't-get-tickets dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

When Adele fans went online to buy tickets to the pop superstar's world tour last year, they had no idea what exactly they were up against.

An army of tech-savvy resellers that included a little-known Canadian superscalper named Julien Lavallée managed to vacuum up thousands of tickets in a matter of minutes in one of the quickest tour sellouts in history.

The many fans who were shut out would have to pay scalpers like Lavallée a steep premium if they still wanted to see their favourite singer.

An investigation by CBC/Radio-Canada and the Toronto Star, based in part on documents found in the Paradise Papers, rips the lid off Lavallée's multimillion-dollar operation based out of Quebec and reveals how ticket website StubHub not only enables but rewards industrial-scale scalpers who gouge fans around the world.

CBC News obtained sales records from three U.K. shows that provide unprecedented insight into the speed and scale of Lavallée's ticket scam.

Despite a four-ticket-per-customer limit, his business snatched up 310 seats in 25 minutes, charged to 15 different names in 12 different locations.

The grand total? Nearly $52,000 worth of tickets at face value.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paradise-papers-stubhub-1.4395361


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday November 14 2017, @07:12PM (10 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday November 14 2017, @07:12PM (#596923) Journal

    A representation is artificial.

    Let's skip the silly sophistry. "artificial scarcity" has a specific meaning and that ain't it.

    Not if you decide to buy a ticket right before a sold out event happens.

    Yes, even then.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:06AM (9 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:06AM (#597100) Journal

    Let's skip the silly sophistry. "artificial scarcity" has a specific meaning and that ain't it.

    But such representations are a routine way that artificial scarcity manifests such as with digital rights management. Let's consider the title of this thread, "Stop Buying From Scalpers". Why do people buy from scalpers in the first place? Because they are the sellers of last resort when everyone else runs out of tickets. The problem here is that tickets are in artificial surplus when they're first sold and artificial scarcity by the time the last minute people want to get in on a sold-out concert. Most of the problem would go away [wikipedia.org] with dynamic pricing similar to how airlines do it combined with partial refunds after a certain point close to the beginning of a concert (a refund to encourage people to turn in unused tickets and partial to generate some additional risk for scalpers trying to corner the market).

    Or just sanction the activity and create a market where the ticket issuer auctions the tickets off and people can speculate on ticket prices to their hearts' desire. It's just not that big a deal.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:21AM (8 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:21AM (#597205) Journal

      There's no such thing as an artificial surplus. There are N seats available and N tickets to go with those seats. No more, no less.

      The part you're missing is that the scalpers CAUSE the seller to run out of tickets much sooner with the express purpose of causing prices to rise. They are an economic inefficiency. They are rent seekers because they get in between seller and the ultimate buyer and suck value out of the transaction without producing any value.

      Do read up on rent seeking and why it is always (and I mean ALWAYS) bad for the market.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:27PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @02:27PM (#597282) Journal

        There's no such thing as an artificial surplus. There are N seats available and N tickets to go with those seats. No more, no less.

        This is a counterexample. Scalpers bought underpriced tickets, thus in artificial surplus, well before the event, and sell them at market price later.

        The part you're missing is that the scalpers CAUSE the seller to run out of tickets much sooner with the express purpose of causing prices to rise. They are an economic inefficiency.

        They exploited the actual economic inefficiency.

        Do read up on rent seeking and why it is always (and I mean ALWAYS) bad for the market.

        You still don't get why it's happening - bad market design. The key factor is dumping a bunch of tickets well before the concert. Plans aren't always made that early. Plans change. In a sensible market, one could pay more to get tickets even to the last minute.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:40PM (1 child)

          by sjames (2882) on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:40PM (#597314) Journal

          Unless the band is taking a loss on the concert, the tickets are not underpriced. If there was a surplus, it was a natural one (more seats available than people who want to see the concert). In a perfect market, the tickets will cost not a single iota more than necessary to motivate the band to do the concert and pay the costs of it. That price will never be more than the price they freely offered the tickets at.

          Inefficiencies in a market drive prices up. They're never a good thing, but they can't always be avoided.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:47PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:47PM (#597320) Journal

            That price will never be more than the price they freely offered the tickets at.

            And when they freely offer those tickets.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:54PM (4 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @08:54PM (#597449) Journal
        Incidentally, a classic example of artificial surplus is printing money. If a party has monopoly control of the money supply and prints money when they need it, then this money is simultaneously in a state of artificial scarcity and artificial surplus.
        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:00PM (3 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:00PM (#597454) Journal

          That's just a surplus,. Nothing artificial about it (in the economic sense).

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:09PM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @09:09PM (#597458) Journal

            That's just a surplus,. Nothing artificial about it (in the economic sense).

            It's artificial in the same way that it is artificially scarce.

            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 15 2017, @10:18PM (1 child)

              by sjames (2882) on Wednesday November 15 2017, @10:18PM (#597493) Journal

              You really don't seem to grasp the concept of artificial scarcity vs. natural scarcity at all.