Comment by gilbetron
2 days ago
Ok, random scalper prevention scheme:
What's the difference between someone that wants to transfer their tickets from someone the know versus a scalper? Trust.
So when you buy a ticket you put, say, $1000, in escrow. The tickets have your name and ID on them. You can transfer the ticket to someone else. However, after the concert, the $1000 gets returned to the final person named on the ticket.
If the transfer is between trustworthy people, then the final ticket holder will give the money back to the original person.
There is no incentive to transfer money to the scalper, however. (Especially if scalping is illegal).
This doesn't eliminate scalping, but it significantly reduces it.
Critique?
The problem is that it requires not only that the ticketed people (scalpers, show-goers) do something new to prevent scalping, but also that the ticketing people (ticketmaster, etc.) do something new to prevent scalping.
We need a solution that demands only the former, not the latter, because the ticketing people have no incentive to eliminate scalping. It's good for them.
It gets a little confusing because situations like TFA make it seem like the ticketers want to help, and while they might be interested in the goodwill of ensuring that some of the tickets sold go to known actual fans first, they definitely aren't interested in losing the "collect a fee multiple times" aspect of maximizing resale which includes zero-trust transactions.
Hmmm - I think the scalper just adds the escrow amount on to the cost as the purchaser will get it back at the end.
Scalpers will just add $1000 to the price of the ticket. And then you keep the $1000 that gets returned to you.