Recently, the popularity of the "performance economy" has continued to rise. Tickets for popular concerts are "hard to come by". In order to combat scalpers, many concerts have implemented a "strong real-name" purchase system that combines people, certificates, and faces. According to the ticketing rules, scalpers launched a "robbing agent" method at a price several times higher than the ticket price. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily found that consumers who choose to "rob on behalf of others" are extremely risky, and may face risks such as fraud and information leakage.
After being deceived after spending a high price to buy tickets on behalf of a star chaser
00, Xiao Zhao (pseudonym) told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that in order to successfully purchase tickets for a certain singer’s concert, he found a person on social platforms who claimed to be able to provide agency tickets. The blogger who grabbed the service paid 30 yuan for the grab service and 258 yuan for the ticket.
Xiao Zhao, who was full of expectations, found that things did not go as smoothly as expected. The other party asked her to pay another 288 yuan on the grounds that the transfer notes were filled in incorrectly. In order to dispel Xiao Zhao's doubts, the other party showed the so-called "authorization certificate" and business license for cooperation with the ticketing platform.
Subsequently, the other party claimed that he only needed to transfer another 800 yuan to activate the tickets, and promised to refund the 800 yuan and the previous mistakenly transferred money. Xiao Zhao refused to pay due to insufficient balance. The other party claimed that "the activation cannot be successful due to insufficient balance" and induced Xiao Zhao to seek help from family and friends. After Xiao Zhao refused again, the other party reduced the activation fee to 300 yuan. At this time, Xiao Zhao realized that he might have been scammed and began to ask for a refund. However, the other party stopped responding because he was off work, and Xiao Zhao ultimately lost 576 yuan.
In fact, there are many cases of being defrauded by looking for scalpers to buy concert tickets. Police and courts in many places have issued relevant cases and tips. For example, the Lanzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau Office in Gansu Province reported a related case in July. A woman saw a video of a concert ticket sales information on the Internet. The other party claimed to be a "ticket clerk" and had "internal channels" to help purchase concert tickets. The other party sent her a link asking to pay for the tickets. However, after she paid, the website displayed "ticket issuance failed" and "funds intercepted". The other party asked her to contact the website's "customer service". Eager to ask for tickets, she followed the other party's step-by-step instructions. As a result, multiple amounts of money were transferred out of the woman’s mobile phone account, resulting in a total loss of more than 30,000 yuan.
There is a risk of leakage of shared personal information.
Beiqing Daily reporters found that social platforms are flooded with various "advertisements" and traffic diversion information for people to compete for and take pictures.
A seller in a store on a second-hand trading platform claimed that he would definitely win if he bought the ticket at the listed price. He came with his own tqm (privilege code) and a team behind him to grab the tickets. He used a combination of technology and manual methods to grab the tickets, and the success rate was 100%. In order to increase the persuasiveness, the seller also showed screenshots of past cases of successful "robbery" and group chat pictures of multiple part-time ticket snatchers, and then withdrew the pictures on the grounds of protecting privacy.
Due to the implementation of a real-name ticket purchase and admission system for performances, a new "scalper" reselling model has appeared in the market. For example, they claim to have developed a “plug-in” to help grab tickets. If you want to grab tickets for popular performances through scalpers, you often need to provide your name, ID number and phone number.
In order to improve the success rate of ticket grabbing, "scalpers" will share information in the group and work with other organizers to work together to grab tickets. The personal information of consumers will be published in detail in the group, including key information such as name, ID number, ticket grabbing app used, ticket number and seats. This form of operation will cause a large amount of consumers’ personal information to be leaked.
Zheng Lei, chief economist of Samoyed Cloud Technology Group, said that small programs use technical means to grab tickets on behalf of others, but the success rate cannot be guaranteed. Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, said that simply providing and using technology to grab tickets is not illegal, but intruding into or destroying other people's computer systems during the ticket grabbing process, and using ticket grabbing behavior to resell profits, is an illegal act and may require liability. criminal responsibility.
Why do scalpers still exist after the real-name system?
Fans can't get tickets, but scalpers have a lot of tickets in their hands to sell them at increased prices.In this regard, Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that although the real-name ticket purchase system is designed to curb scalpers, there are still loopholes, such as the reselling of non-traditional ticket forms such as invitation letters and internal tickets, as well as the use of proxy auction and proxy grabbing services. There are loopholes in the refund and transfer rules to hoard and resell tickets.
From the perspective of the ticket sales mechanism, according to relevant regulations, the number of tickets sold to the market by the performance organizer is 85%. For the remaining 15% of the tickets, personal information must be bound 24 hours before the performance to achieve "real name" Binding, real-name admission.”
Industry insiders said that usually, the organizers will allocate the publicly sold tickets to "ticket agents." In addition to the officially authorized ticketing platform, there are also second-, third- and even fourth-level ticket agents. Tickets for non-public sale are generally "work tickets" reserved for staff in service guarantee positions, rights tickets given back to brand sponsors, etc. Some scalper tickets may flow out from work tickets and sponsorship tickets. In addition, in order to provide adequate protection for poor box office performance, in addition to giving performance tickets to ticketing agents, the organizer or organizer will even give some tickets to "scalpers".
From the ticket purchase stage, scalpers have occupied a lot of ticket sources through various technical software. Due to the implementation of the real-name ticket purchase system, a large number of scalpers have spawned. In addition to "plug-ins" to grab tickets, "scalpers" also hire a large number of "real people" to grab tickets through the official ticketing platform and hoard tickets. Because the ticket purchasing behavior of real people is consistent with the normal ticket purchasing behavior, it is difficult for the system to make accurate identification.
From the ticket verification process, because not all performances adopt the "strong real-name" rule of person, ID, and face. For some concerts that adopt the three-in-one "strong real-name" mechanism of "person, face, and certificate", "scalpers" will collect deposits from buyers in advance. Some consumers risk personal information leakage and send personal information to "scalpers" for implementation. "Robbery on behalf of others".
How to maintain order in the ticketing market
Many interviewed experts said that combating ticket scalping requires joint efforts from many parties, such as strengthening the construction of laws and regulations, improving the ticket management system, using technical means to monitor and crack down, and raising consumer vigilance. Awareness of sexual and rights protection, and jointly resist scalpers.
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission once suggested that real-name ticket purchasing be strengthened, saying that the cultural and sports performance industry can refer to the railway ticketing mechanism to improve ticket purchase and refund processes, improve the after-sales service mechanism, and establish a complete "waitlist" and "refund" process to avoid scalpers. Tickets are flooding the secondary market.
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that organizers and ticketing platforms should assume more responsibilities. The organizer should strictly control the issuance and use of tickets to ensure the legality and authenticity of tickets. Ticketing platforms should strengthen technical precautions, improve the security and stability of the system, and prevent scalpers from using technical means to grab and hoard tickets.
lawyer Fu Jian believes that combating new scalpers requires strengthening the implementation of the real-name ticket purchase system, including verification of ticket purchase information and cracking down on the use of false identity information to purchase tickets. Relevant units with regulatory obligations should increase management intensity and punishment, and increase the cost of violating the law. Experts interviewed by
believe that in addition to technical means and regulatory measures, it is also important to improve consumers' awareness of prevention. During the ticket purchase process, consumers should pay attention to protecting personal information, such as name, ID number, mobile phone number, etc., to avoid leaking it to strangers or illegal organizations, do not trust ticket information from strangers and informal platforms, and consciously resist buying scalpers. ticket. At the same time, consumers are encouraged to actively report scalpers and scalpers to provide strong social support for combating vote scalpers.
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Interns Ma Mengyi Yin Zitong
Text/Beijing Youth Daily Reporter Song Xia
Editor/Fan Hongwei
