Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: resale for profit

OK...not looking at what others say...as I'm an eBay regular...here's what you do.

Under the eBay site map, there is a listing for buyer complaints. If you follow the links, EVENTUALLY you get to the spot where you can contact customer service. THEY WILL NOT TELL WHO FILED THE COMPLAINT (I know people in their legal department, they're good about keeping things anonymous)

File that the vendor (by ebay name) is selling this item (list item number) which is a complimentary, not for sale ticket. (I'd figure the tickets are marked as complimentary...yes?)

eBay knows this is not an allowed item and will remove the auctions. If there are multiple violations, they will pull the seller name and all other names associated with that same address.

Alternatively...

You can call the ticket vendors and give them an anonymous tip that their comp tickets are being sold on eBay and give them the item number.

This may be the better way for you, it's out of your hands and no longer your problem. You've made the people who are being wronged aware of the situation and you can have a clean conscience about the entire thing.

Good luck!

Scott

TheLawShack.com

Re: resale for profit

Reselling tickets is generally legal in California as long as it is not done on the premises of the arena, theatre, stadium, etc. where the event is to take place. This is true regardless of the resale price.

I don't know if there is a law against reselling comps, but I doubt it. I'm not sure what you mean about your employer "allowing" third parties to set up eBay accounts and sell their tickets; he has no right to prevent them from doing business on eBay.

Even if there is something wrong about this I don't think you need to worry. Most people who buy tickets on eBay realize they are not buying from the original source. They probably also realize they are being charged more than face value, but even if they don't the law generally does not require sellers to reveal that buyers could get the same thing elsewhere for less.

There may be a law that requires sellers to reveal the face value of tickets they mark up, but I don't know if there is, and you haven't said this is what the third parties are doing anyway.

Even if this is what they're doing and even if it is illegal, there isn't much you can do about it other than reporting the resellers to the police. If the sellers are advertising illegally on eBay you can also let the site know so that it can deal with the problem internally.

Keep in mind that your employer may not be happy about you doing such things. Depending upon what you say and to whom, the law may not protect you from being fired for blowing this particular whistle. If it is really important to you to do this, pay for a consultation with a lawyer first. It may turn out that the consequences are not justifiable, or it may turn out that there are things you can do to reduce your exposure.

Re: resale for profit

report it to the police in the jurisdiction of the event to see if they think it is illegal.

Re: resale for profit

I've never understood people who think so-called "scalpers" are doing something immoral. In my opinion they perform a valuable service (or else no one would patronize them) and they contribute to a free market for tickets. The market price for tickets goes down as well as up, once I was able to purchase a ticket to the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden for $10 because it was raining and the scalpers had overbought, leading to a supply-demand mismatch. On Wall Street such people are called "specialists." The only legal issues here are 1) dealing in tickets in the immediate vicinity of a venue may be prohibited by local ordinance (thank God for eBay) and 2) selling "comps" may breach the agreement between compor and compee.