Stamp It Tout: How to spot and beat ticket resell scams

There’s nothing like a live gig – and that starts the moment those tickets rumble into your inbox. Once you hear that new email “ping” that confirms you’re going, the anticipation builds. The weeks or months of waiting. The steady chirp of the group chat as the day gets closer. Even the journey to the venue is an event in itself.

These are the memories and experiences we live for. But getting your hands on those sweet tickets has become harder than ever. When demand for top events outweighs supply, it can lead us to take radical steps to secure tickets – such as using online touts, where the prices are often hiked to eye-watering sums (to a tune of an extra £145 million a year for music fans).

And that may be the best-case scenario in a world awash with fake tickets, dodgy website and online scams. You could go through months of build-up only to find that your tickets are worthless and you’re not getting inside.

At Virgin Media O2, we’re on a mission to help you navigate the resale market so you can feel confident that you are paying a fair price for your tickets and that the tickets are genuine. We also want to show you how you can resell tickets fairly to other fans if you can no longer make it.

To mark the launch of our new online information hub Stamp It Tout, we’ve pulled together some simple tips to help you make informed ticketing purchases and avoid being ripped off. Let’s get into it.

Artists will always link to official ticket sellers in posts on their socials and official websites and these should be the first place you check before you buy tickets. We often rely on search engines and trust the first results we see – but that doesn’t always mean the website at the top of the results is an official ticket seller. It just means the website pays a lot of money to companies to increase their search position.

If a ticket is being sold on a website such as Viagogo or on social media, it is important to recognise it isn’t being sold directly by the artist or promoter. It is being resold by another human being, who has independently decided the price.

While it’s often the only option available to music fans when shows are sold out, buying a second-hand ticket always comes with risks. Did you know that only 5% of music fans say they would buy a second-hand ticket from outside a venue? Yet buying a ticket through an online resale platform is a thing that millions of us do.

But our research has found people aren’t doing so with confidence. More than 60% of music fans who have attended live music events through buying tickets from the resale market are worried about being sold a fake one.

This anxiety is not unfounded. Platforms like Viagogo may offer fans a full refund if they fall foul of a ticket scam, but they cannot guarantee entry to the show, all too often leaving victims heartbroken, embarrassed and out of pocket on travel expenses outside a show that they cannot get into.

Many music fans have a genuine need to resell a ticket when they can no longer make a show – life happens, right? – but how they resell it matters.

There are fan-to-fan platforms, such as Twickets and Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace, where tickets can be resold for no more than the price originally paid (plus fees). This helps to maintain fairness for genuine fans and stops the prices of second-hand tickets from spiralling way beyond their face value.

Tickets bought through Ticketmaster can be sold through its “Ticketmaster Verified Resale” feature which allows you to list your tickets for resale. But do bear in mind that while most tickets can be sold this way, not all events or tickets are eligible for resale because sometimes the event organiser has specific restrictions.

To resell your tickets on Ticketmaster, you’ll need to log into your account, go to your order and follow the steps to list the tickets for sale. The resale process is usually done through the same platform, so buyers can securely purchase tickets from other users. Ticketmaster verifies every ticket on its resale platform, so the ticket (and seat) you buy is the ticket you get.

Almost three-quarters of music fans want rules around ticket resale. Virgin Media O2 is a longtime partner of FanFair Alliance, and we want to see more tickets in the hands of genuine music fans, not the ticket touts ruining things for everyone.

Stamp It Tout aims to demystify the way touts currently operate and offer music fans:

• Simple tips to help you make informed ticketing purchases and avoid being ripped off by touts.

• A guide to the government’s consultation – why music fans should take part and how you can do so in a matter of minutes.

• More information about the Fight for Fairer Ticketing campaign so far and what this means to music fans.

If you want more information, visit Stamp It Tout’s new website.