Winners of Live 8 concert tickets will be banned from using Ebay to sell them, the global auction house said late Tuesday.
As first reported in MarathonMum Tuesday afternoon, some Live 8 ticket winners were attempting to use Ebay to sell the highly sought after tickets. However, many of these sellers were being stymied in these efforts as people put in false bids of up to £10 million pounds.
Sir Bob Geldolf, Live 8’s organizer, described the sales as “sick profiteering” and pressed Ebay to ban the sale of the tickets. More than 2 million people sent text messages in the hopes of winning tickets to the Live 8 concert on July 2 in Hyde Park, which will feature U2, REM, Madonna, Coldplay, Sir Paul McCartney and others.
Even though Ebay has banned the sales, it’s not going to stop people from trying to profit from their good fortune. But with Ebay out of the equation, it will make it much more difficult to get a high price for the tickets. Sellers will have to return to the dark and scary place where there is no Internet, and sell them through word of mouth, classifieds or the local newagent's window.Posting a notice in your local newsagent’s window is pretty far afield from being able to sell it on Ebay.
Finally, while I think it’s great that Ebay bowed to public pressure, I’m not convinced it was wholly necessary. When I checked the site late last night, before the tickets had been removed from sale, more than 20 pairs had bids of £10 million. It seemed as though those who objected to the sales were doing a fine job themselves of thwarting the auctions.
No comments:
Post a Comment