Legality of not honouring event tickets and not refunding

JDPower

Is this legal? A person hires a venue for an event, sells advance tickets, with normal terms. But also sells tickets nearer the date which are non refundable and don't guarantee entry - they state that if the venue is full, due to on the door sales, you can't enter (this is an exclusively hired venue, so can only fill up with people attending the event, not a shared space that could fill up with other people)

This strikes me as fraud - selling non-refundable tickets that you knowingly won't honour and/or selling more tickets than CAN be honoured. Surely the on the door sales should only be taken from remaining tickets, not take as many on the door sales as possible and any ticket holders who may turn up later are left out of pocket with no recourse?

Ergates

If they specifically state that might not let you in and you still won't get your money back I'm not sure it would be fraud.

I can't imagine why anyone would buy a ticket with terms like those though...

pinkshoes

I think this would be classified as an unfair term.

Like airlines over-sell some flights but then they do have to get passengers onto another flight and can't just say "tough luck the flight is full"!

I would certainly not purchase anything with those terms as they could sell 1000 tickets for just 100 spaces and make a fortune!

JDPower

Interesting. In my head purchasing a ticket for an event was kind of entering into a contract for them to provide a service (ie access to the event), and if they didn't provide it would HAVE to refund, much like buying something online and then not being sent what you paid for - that would be fraud. The world of ticketing is clearly more loosely regulated than I thought.

ThumbRemote

It's either fraud or a lottery, in which case they ought to be licenced for running a gambling operation. 

user1977

I doubt it meets the standard for fraud if they're upfront about the basis on which the tickets are being sold. Not that I can see the cops being interested unless it was something as blatant as selling tickets for an event which you knew was never going to happen. And even if it is fraud, that just means there might be a criminal investigation, not that it helps you get your money back!

born_again

Perhaps have a word with the venue. If they are selling more tickets than people allowed to attend. Then they will not be happy.

JDPower

user1977 said:

I doubt it meets the standard for fraud if they're upfront about the basis on which the tickets are being sold. Not that I can see the cops being interested unless it was something as blatant as selling tickets for an event which you knew was never going to happen. And even if it is fraud, that just means there might be a criminal investigation, not that it helps you get your money back!

For the record, I've not bought these tickets, nor interested in reporting it as any kind of crime, was just curious about the legal status of such a strange method of selling.

So such a set up is fine as long as it's stated upfront? So I could list something for sale online, and state in the terms and conditions you probably won't receive the item you're buying, and that would be ok? (not trying to trip anyone up, just curious)

user1977

JDPower said:

user1977 said:

I doubt it meets the standard for fraud if they're upfront about the basis on which the tickets are being sold. Not that I can see the cops being interested unless it was something as blatant as selling tickets for an event which you knew was never going to happen. And even if it is fraud, that just means there might be a criminal investigation, not that it helps you get your money back!

For the record, I've not bought these tickets, nor interested in reporting it as any kind of crime, was just curious about the legal status of such a strange method of selling.

So such a set up is fine as long as it's stated upfront? So I could list something for sale online, and state in the terms and conditions you probably won't receive the item you're buying, and that would be ok? (not trying to trip anyone up, just curious)

Depends what you mean by "ok". It may well be an unfair contractual term and therefore not enforceable as between a business and a consumer. But you asked whether it was fraud i.e. the criminal offence. That's a much higher hurdle. And, like I said, not all that relevant to the consumer's rights.