Ticketmaster Claims Hacking Over Ticket Resale Site 317
FlopEJoe writes "Ticketmaster claims that RMG Technologies is providing software to avoid security measures on their website - even to the point of utilizing bots to get large blocks of tickets. RMG says it just 'provides a specialized browser for ticket brokers.' From the New York Times article: 'The fact that tickets to popular events sell out so quickly -- and that brokers and online resellers obtain them with such velocity -- is clouding the business, many in the music industry say. It is enough, some longtime concertgoers say, to make them long for the days when all they had to do to obtain tickets was camp out overnight.'"
Re:And we're to feel sorry?! (Score:5, Informative)
1. You navigate to their website past the dozens of scalper pretenders and through their horrible interface.
2. Select your area and click go. It's not always clear where exactly the tickets are, but I guess if you do it enough you'll learn the terminology.
3. Now you have to do their Captcha, which usually has a bunch of 1s and Os, or Is and 0s, it's a bit of a crapshoot getting it right.
4. After a few minutes you get randomly given some seats. If you'd prefer to have one higher up but closer around a side or down the middle, well, tough. You can try to have more tickets randomly generated but they'll tend to be in the same area time and time again.
5. Now you have to high stress part of buying the tickets. You're presented with a huge form with your name, address, etc... and told that if you can't fill all of the info in within 2 minutes then you'll lose your tickets and have to start over
6. Do it again for the credit card info.
7. And for the delivery part. If the site is going to crash, it will usually do it here, or the next page will just take more than a minute to load and when you finally get it the page will already be timed out.
8. Otherwise you get the joy of spending $10 or $15 to have them email you a PDF and have you print it out on your own paper with your own ink. I'm sure glad they managed to email me for only $10.
At least once you have the PDF (which tells you very clearly to print out the whole thing on an 8.5x11 or it won't be valid, despite the fact that 75% of the page is just ads). When you get to the venue all they care about is the barcode on the bottom.
Every time I see the system I think I could write a website that could easily do the same thing for less than a dollar a ticket. The trick is of course that I wouldn't have the vast sums of money to buy out venues across the country to insure the monopoly.
Re:Solution (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of people buy their tickets early, at face value, and would never consider paying scalper prices. A lot of other people don't bother and are willing to pay far far more. Raising the cost of tickets might force out 3rd parties, but it would, in many cases lead to fewer people buying tickets and thus less profit overall. There are probably very highly paid people working that sort of thing out.
Re:And we're to feel sorry?! (Score:3, Informative)
I've only used them once (or maybe twice), but it worked fine. It was when a band had *very* early advance ticket sales to supporters (essentially low level patrons).
Ticketweb [ticketweb.com] also handles a lot of small clubs in the LA area and isn't usually too expensive. It's gotten so that things are likely enough to sell out at small clubs that advance tickets are a good idea, even for a lot of local bands.
Re:Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away (Score:3, Informative)
They neglected to tell the winners the tickets were non-transferable."
I seem to remember hearing that the tickets were non-transferable when I first heard that they would be available by lottery only. That was the whole idea, cut out the scalping.
Re:Captcha Problems (Score:3, Informative)
A human using the system is beyond the stated scope.
Re:The government should ban scalping (Score:1, Informative)
I dunno about other auction sites, but eBay enforces the laws based on the billing address you register with them... so as a PA resident, I couldn't bid more than face value+$5 on a ticket being auctioned off by anyone for a concert that would take place in PA-- even if I wanted to bid more than that. Which is bullshit. Luckily, I have a co-worker who lives in DE, which has no such laws, so I borrowed his account when I wanted to buy or sell tickets after I found out about the enforcement.
I understand PA changed their ticket laws this summer to remove some restrictions concerning tickets sold on the internet, but I don't know specifics.
Re:Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away (Score:3, Informative)