Enforce Portland’s Anti-Scalping Laws
We’ve all ranted and raved about the ridiculous fees that ticket sites like TIcketmaster charge, but while unscrupulous and evil - it is legal. Resale ticket sites like StubHub however - seem to be pushing the boundaries of legality, and I was glad to see a Portland woman is fighting back.
Sharon Fehrs came across the site when trying to buy Springsteen tickets - which at $100+ fees are already way to expensive - and saw that they were selling them for upwards of $1000. Portland has an anti-scalping law that says that tickets cannot be resold for more than their face-value. Fehrs wants Portland to enforce this law, and is filing a class action suit against StubHub.
While I go to a lot of shows, most of them aren’t the big ticket ones that sites like StubHub deal with, so I wasn’t aware of the site until last summer when I was looking at trying to take my 13-year-old niece to see Kelly Clarkson or the American Idol tour. And the only tickets I could find were through StubHub - and running more than 3x the actual ticket prices.
I knew that wasn’t right and simply passed on buying the tickets. But we had my father buy us tickets for the same Springsteen show that Fehrs is talking about - and he wasn’t aware that wasn’t the legitimate ticket broker. We were going to be out of town and offline when the tickets went on sale, so we asked him to buy them for us. When I gave him the info the day before - he looked and told us - “well they’re already on sale - but it looks like that cost $400 each.” He had ended up on StubHub - through a direct link from the Rose Garden site. Wow - talk about deceptive! If I hadn’t been on the phone with him at the time, he might have thought that was the only option and bought them.
Sure - people still buy the tickets at those crazy prices - so some people will say that’s capitalism at it’s finest and if the market supports it, it’s ok. Well that’s a bunch of bullshit. And I’m glad Fehrs is calling them on it!
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I am glad too - I hope she wins.
I totally agree that scalping sucks, Stubhub sucks, Ticketmaster sucks, and tickets are way too expensive.
That said - I’m calling B.S. on Ms. Fehr’s story that she “clicked and reclicked just as the tickets went on sale at 10 a.m., but couldn’t find more than one seat available, her attorney says.”
I just went to the Rose Garden website, followed the link to buy tickets to the Springsteen show, and found two seats together for the face value of $95.
So, if you buy a car for $10,000…. are you then not free to turn right around and resell it for whatever price you can obtain, $12,000 or even higher, if that’s what you can obtain?
If you want to be free to do this, why shouldn’t others be free to sell their product (tickets) at whatever price the market will bear?
Either you value the free market or you do not. You can’t value it sometimes, when it’s in your favor, and oppose it at other times, when it’s not in your favor.
Which is it?
Fuck the free market.
Sigh…I knew we’d have a Hannah comment.
This is not a single person buying a single ticket/car/etc. and reselling. This is a huge corporation (StubHub is owned by eBay) buying in bulk (4 max tickets per person?) before the general public has access and then reselling.
If I but 4 tickets, use 2 and resell 2 for twice the cost - that’s slimy, but not illegal. This is.
What a sad commentary that a single citizen must pay a lawyer to get a law that’s already on the books to be enforced.
Where the heck is the City Attorney?
This is a city ordinance. It’s up to the City Attorney to enforce it.
Linda Meng, do your job!
Steve R wrote:
> Fuck the free market.
An intelligent comment. I’m sure you are all for the free market when it benefits you, as in selling your labor and talents to the highest bidder, but you seem opposed to it when others manipulate it more skillfully than you.
> This is not a single person buying a single
> ticket/car/etc. and reselling. This is a huge
> corporation (StubHub is owned by eBay) buying in > bulk (4 max tickets per person?) before the
> general public has access and then reselling.
Corporations are no less a part of the free market than you are. They are free to enter into business relationships with other businesses to maximize their profits and serve a customer base, which they clearly are here. You probably like the collective bargaining power of corporations as when, for example, it’s WalMart getting you $4/month prescriptions — prescriptions that cost many, many times that at places like drugstore.com or (God forbid) Safeway. Or the low prices they can offer you on toilet paper.
Curious.
So, you disagree with the law, Hanna?
Scalping tickets is illegal. Period. The law needs to be enforced, otherwise, the law is pointless.
You heard me, Hannah.
Do I need to repeat myself?
Fuck the free market. Property is theft. There is no good but the common good. From each according to ability; to each according to need.
Am I being clear?
Hannah,
This “free market” you speak of is a fiction. It does not exist. Corporations are not “free” to enter into any business agreement they like - neither are you or I. There are rules and regulations governing trade (there are also a number of monopolies that go completely counter to the “free trade” idea). One of those rules is that you cannot sell a ticket for more than its face value in the city of Portland.
That’s really the crux of the argument, and one that seems to be going over your head.
> Property is theft.
Funny, Steven. I thought the same thing at 18. Have you grown up any since then? Private possessions, for better or worse, make the world go around. Communally owned property was tried last century, and failed miserably. It’s just not human nature.
Grow up, Steven, and put away your childish dreams. Life is difficult.
tenstringesquire, why should you be able to sell your car for the highest price you can obtain, but a corporation should not be free to see a ticket for any price they can obtain?
You do not have a constitutional right to see Bruce Springsteen in concert.
And *yes*, you do sell your labor and talent for the highest price you can obtain on the free market. If not, you are a sucker. But I suspect you would quickly change jobs for a 25% salary increase, all else being equal.
I did not know about the antiscalping law till I heard it on the news. Now I have never been to a concert so I don’t know what the “door” price is and I have never bought tickets or any thing else on line from places like e-bay so what I’m about to say is MY ASSUMPTION I think there is a fee/charge to use e-bay, pay pall… now if there is and “you” buy 4 tickets use 2 your self and you sell 2 on e-bay and the tickets cost you $10.00 each and the fee is lets say $5.00 each why shouldnt you be able to sell them for $15.00 each using my example and if the oregon law is in affect you will be selling them for half price whether or not the buyer or seller pays the fee. BUT from what I saw on the news the Springsteen tickets where from 40 to 90 bucks at the gate and going for 400 to 1000 bucks each on line THATS JUST RIDICULOUS.
Hannah, I’m sensing the folks who read this blog already know your position. I think I do, too.
Here’s the thing: there is a law, an actual law, that doesn’t allow you to buy a ticket and then sell it again for whatever you want above the ticket price, regardless of the demand. That’s it. End of argument. If you don’t like the law, work to change it. Otherwise, shut up and move on.
As for this free market bull, it doesn’t exist. In any form. It is a regulated market, plain and simple. Try reading a book every once in a while.
>tenstringesquire, why should you be able to sell >your car for the highest price you can obtain, but >a corporation should not be free to see a ticket >for any price they can obtain?
Because an apple is not an orange. Oh, and because there’s a law on the books that says they can’t. Hope that clears it up.
>You do not have a constitutional right to see >Bruce Springsteen in concert.
Whoa, whoa. I thought we were talking “free market”. Now we’re talking constitutional rights? My head is about to explode.
>And *yes*, you do sell your labor and talent for >the highest price you can obtain on the free >market.
There is no free market outside of right-wing AM radio paranoid fantasies - that is what a half-dozen posters have tried to explain to you in a half-dozen different ways. The market is regulated - and tightly regulated at that. Oh, never mind. To loosely quote the late great Bill Hicks, this discussion is like showing a card trick to a dog.
Please don’t take this as an insult, Hannah, but I’m going to save my breath for people with a slightly higher comprehension level than you currently possess.
“…showing a card trick to a dog.”
Heh.
I actually agree with Hannah to extent. I’m content to allow these bands to price themselves out of the market. Even $100 is too much to see a fucking band to start with, especially perched atop a seat in the upper loge. But again, who knows what the market will bear, as I don’t understand why somebody would spend $400 to see some guy strum a guitar for 90 minutes when that money could be spent on a 401k contribution, an iPhone, or on hookers and blow. But I don’t pretend to understand many things, and you can always expect fools to act fool heartedly.
“Either you value the free market or you do not. You can’t value it sometimes, when it’s in your favor, and oppose it at other times, when it’s not in your favor.”
If only the world was so binary and everybody felt the same way, including those corporatists who clamor for the free market yet are the biggest direct beneficiaries when such a mythical market is crippled in their favor. Industrial corn farming concerns in Iowa, the U.S. steel industry, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, the banking industry, the telecommunications industry, the defense industry, and on and on and on and on and on.