Now that so many venues act like touts themselves, with remote phone rooms and a panoply of additional costs on the face value of the tickets, its difficult to tell sometimes who is a tout and who isn’t. But one of the dangers of using an “unofficial” agency is highlighted by a story in The Guardian today about the collapse of one such online ticket source, tickettout.com (who traded under the name Ticket Tout Ltd). I guess their name is at least an honest statement of their business model; but people who have purchased advance tickets through them have now been told their orders will not be fulfilled. “Regrettably, the company will be unable to provide these to you as it is not in possession of the tickets.” Of course, it was in possession of their customer’s money, parted in good faith that the tickets would be forthcoming, so a kind of fraud has been perpetrated. They have sold what they haven’t, in fact, got.
While the travel industry protects its own reputation – and customers’ ability to buy in good faith – via ABTA, the ticketing business is still largely unregulated, or at best self-regulated, via organisations like STAR – the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, whose members subscribe to a code of practice that ensures that they (in the words of their website):
Clearly identify the face value of the ticket purchased and any additional booking fees.
Highlight any terms and conditions, including transferability, cancellation and viewing restrictions.
Handle bookings in a polite and courteous manner, giving the highest standards of professional service.”
That’s all good and well as a statement of good business practice. But does it provide more than a smokescreen of respectability? Getting the STAR seal of approval doesn’t actually cost a ticket agency much: the application fee is £500, the joining fee is a further £500, and then the annual membership is on a sliding scale of charges based on annual turnover, from £630 (up to 100,000 tickets a year sold) to £5,040 (over 5million tickets a year sold).
But though STAR’s own declared policy is to inspire “consumer confidence” by offering its members “the right to display the STAR logo, an indication of confidence to the customer, on all products, catalogues, stationery, sales literature, websites etc” and offering “clear distinction from less scrupulous ticket sellers”, there’s something crucial missing: building consumer confidence is very laudable, but there’s still no ultimate consumer protection built in there against collapses of the Ticket Tout Ltd sort (though I very much doubt they were members!).
As The Guardian news story about it suggests, “This latest collapse of a ticket firm will pressure the government for a ban on the resale of tickets, which would, in effect, kill touting. Last month, culture secretary Tessa Jowell said she did not believe there was a need for such legislation.”
