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0 pointsmakeitdouble3d ago0 comments

I don't know how naive the actual wording is, but fighting these kind of resells is an arms race.

If for instance they allow reselling the ticket at the same price, processing fees could be exempted from that calculation. So charging the nominal price, but with enormous fees that go to the seller's pocket in a roundabout way will work.

If processing fees are caped, the seller can request payment through a middle item that is nominally valued the same as the ticket but can actually be paid for more.

Or the reseller will accept generous tips in exchange for the ticket at the nominal price. etc. etc.

As long as there's someone willing to pay, money will find the way to the reseller.

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pjerem3d ago

Except you are losing yourself in technicalities, technicalities which court will not care about. Most judicial systems (including UK) are based on both letter AND spirit of the law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law

Most courts will not convict your only for your actions but for the intention that fulfilled your actions. That's also why in most countries, murder and attempted murder will have the same consequences.

So you can hide your fees however you want, the court will interpret your intentions, and you'll have a hard time justifying your $250 processing fee for reselling a concert ticket.

titanomachy3d ago

Enforcement of small-scale commerce is hard, black markets exist, people will go advertise on shady sites if they have to.

Imagine you've instituted this ban, and some concert has face-value $100 tickets that now have $400 market value. The reality isn't going to be "there's now lots of $100 tickets available on StubHub", it's going to be "StubHub has no tickets, and some shady black-market website has tickets available for $400 with no consumer protections".

That said, I'm not totally against this world, since all of these inconveniences will add friction and make it less attractive and profitable to buy and scalp lots of tickets. But since I often find out about concerts kind of late, I'm also happy that there's tickets available for me at any price. I'd probably end up going to fewer concerts if we killed the legal resale market.