Former ticket scalper says New Zealand Government should introduce laws on resales

A former ticket scalper says the New Zealand Government should protect ticket buyers by adopting anti-scalping laws similar to those in Australian states.

The scalper, who recently spoke anonymously with the Stuff news website said there also needed to be a crackdown from tax authorities on scalpers, who should be paying tax on their ticket trading.

The scalper advised "as far as I can see right now, this is just a massive tax-free industry, and there’s so much money flying around the world, and there’s no accountability."

New Zealand's Commerce Commission is currently taking action against ticket resale website Viagogo in the High Court alleging that it is predominantly a platform for professional scalpers, who are responsible for 90% of sales on the site.

The scalper, who provided evidence of his scalping success, claimed to have made over $300,000 scalping, relying on the gullibility of New Zealand ticket buyers.

He recalled “Viagogo said I was one of the biggest (resellers) in the South Pacific.”

He also noted high levels of stress, advising “the stress of selling was also high, with constant harassment from organisations such as NZ Rugby. The number of abusive calls I received from their group of old boys was quite comical.”

However, this abuse came through the Trade Me rather than Viagogo, with the scalper stating “when I was selling on Trade Me, I would get the craziest things sent to me. Waikato Chiefs fans were the worst. They would sent stuff to you like, ‘I hope your dad gets cancer’, just like the most vile things I have seen in my life.”

“It’s very stressful, like when you’ve got a job, and you’re busy 12 to 14 hours a day, and you have to go home and upload 50 tickets for some crappy concert.”

At the High Court in Auckland, the Commerce Commission is trying to prove Viagogo misleads buyers into thinking it operates ‘official’ ticket sales website, as well as misleading them about how scarce tickets for events were.

Viagogo denies the claims and following past action has also made changes to the way it markets itself, including promising to never again take out Google adwords advertisements containing the word ‘official’.

The former scalper was amazed at how incautious some New Zealand buyers were, clicking on Google adverts because they came up first on a search page, and paying over the official price to scalpers for tickets at events that had not yet sold out.

He went on to tell Stuff “while Viagogo is not the root of the issue in New Zealand, the real problem lies in the gullibility of the consumer.

“Anyone with a basic level of intelligence should be able to identify that Viagogo is not the official seller of tickets, as it is clearly stated on their website.”

The scalper agreed that his actions were “slightly unethical, but I also argue it’s just the nature of supply and demand.

“Selling on Viagogo when an event sold out is morally questionable, but it’s not illegal.”