Need advice on what to do about Michael Jackson tickets - postponed dates.

kevinyork

Im finding the really interesting how eBay are drip feeding info on this. First they make a statement that all buyers will get their money back then several statements saying sellers should refund and buyers should contact their sellers. Whats missing is what will eBay do ultimately where a back bedroom seller has sold off a few extra tickets on a personal eBay account and lets say received payment by cheque? What about other sellers where the 45 day Paypal claim limit has expired? Are they going to act outside of their terms and conditions and force refunds or ultimately is Ebay themselves going to put their hands in their pockets and refund buyers? Its like eBay think if they repeatedly keep saying to sellers 'you should refund, you should refund' that ultimately everything will be ok.

This statement from Trading Standards surely can only apply to business sellers of tickets and not private individuals?

I think either way eBay are going to lose a lot of future income on ticket sales. Buyers will be wary of buying tickets at inflated prices on eBay and sellers will be wary of eBay changing the rules retrospectively.

cyberbob

kevinyork wrote: »

I think either way eBay are going to lose a lot of future income on ticket sales. Buyers will be wary of buying tickets at inflated prices on eBay and sellers will be wary of eBay changing the rules retrospectively.

I think ebay will end up stopping ticket sales as they are more prolems than they are worth

NeilJung

The way I see Paypal doing it "outside" the t&cs is by essentially "buying" the legal debt from the buyers, then selling or passing over that debt to debt collectors. There may even be a special clause in their "refund" to this effect. That way the t&cs are still the same, they will have just taken an individual and separate type of action. If they are smart they will cover it some way along these lines and I'm sure they have a legal team hard at work on it right now while the PR team try to string it out as long as possible.

Premier_2

kevinyork wrote: »

...This statement from Trading Standards surely can only apply to business sellers of tickets and not private individuals?...

It applies to all sales of MJ tickets. The press release by TS should help anyone who doesn't obtain a refund and finds it necessary to resort to legal action to obtain one.

One could even possibly argue that most of those ebayers who were selling MJ tickets within hours/days of them going on general release should be registered as a business anyway (both with ebay & HMRC) since they obviously bought to sell.

soolin

I think there are a lot of 'private' sellers who will find themselves with letters from HMRC asking if they want to reconsider their tax returns. You don't buy something at 9am and have it listed as unwanted at 9.02 unless you bought to sell.

kevinyork

Premier wrote: »

It applies to all sales of MJ tickets. The press release by TS should help anyone who doesn't obtain a refund and finds it necessary to resort to legal action to obtain one.

One could even possibly argue that most of those ebayers who were selling MJ tickets within hours/days of them going on general release should be registered as a business anyway (both with ebay & HMRC) since they obviously bought to sell.

TS rarely actually act and their resources could not cope with dealing with every non compliant seller of MJ tickets.

Id agree that there are many private sellers of everything and not just tickets that HMRC should take a look at. Ive reported many obvious business sellers hiding behind private IDs to eBay and they do absolutely nothing.

Premier_2

kevinyork wrote: »

TS rarely actually act and their resources could not cope with dealing with every non compliant seller of MJ tickets....

Correct. TS rarely take action themselves over individual cases unless it has wider implications (e.g. to force a trader to stop selling a dangerous item, prevent rogue traders continuing to trade, etc)

One of TS major roles is to empower consumers. By TS explaining the legal position, hopefully buyers can now get sellers to do the honest & right thing and provide a refund, else have the necessary confidence to enforce those rights via legal means.

TS is also right to suggest buyers explore other avenues that may be open to them (such as a paypal claim, credit card claim, etc) if a seller does not provide the refund they are entitled to before reverting to court action, which should always be considered a last resort.

Bensonrad

Whats the deal with presale codes, I sold mine on ebay as decided against buying a ticket or going to the gigs.

In my listing I stated the auction was not for a ticket, it was a chance to get a ticket using the pre sale code, but did not guarantee they would get ticket. Very much a lottery. Buyer was happy and left good feedback as I did with them.

The buyer has now opened a dispute against me wanting all money back (which has now been spent) under the heading item not received and paypal have frozen money in my account.

Ebay has not really made it clear if I am meant to be refunding the buyer (judging by his feedback I am assuming he is a ticket tout, over 60 Take That Tickets sold in the past month).

Morally I think I should perhaps refund the buyer, but as it was not actually a ticket I sold in the first place, I am not too sure.

Premier_2

I would say as per the post by photome in the other thread you posed this question in

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=23208053

As long as you delivered the code using a delivery method that offers online proof of delivery - without that proof of delivery you'll lose the paypal claim.

Perhaps you could use the feedback left as evidence they received the item if you took legal action against the buyer should they obtain a paypal reversal.

Mozette

Bensonrad wrote: »

Whats the deal with presale codes, I sold mine on ebay as decided against buying a ticket or going to the gigs.

In my listing I stated the auction was not for a ticket, it was a chance to get a ticket using the pre sale code, but did not guarantee they would get ticket. Very much a lottery. Buyer was happy and left good feedback as I did with them.

The buyer has now opened a dispute against me wanting all money back (which has now been spent) under the heading item not received and paypal have frozen money in my account.

Ebay has not really made it clear if I am meant to be refunding the buyer (judging by his feedback I am assuming he is a ticket tout, over 60 Take That Tickets sold in the past month).

Morally I think I should perhaps refund the buyer, but as it was not actually a ticket I sold in the first place, I am not too sure.

I don't see why you should refund. If the person who bought the code hadn't managed to get a ticket would you think of refunding? They paid for the code, they got the code.

Not the same as selling a ticket.