BBC investigation reveals illegal practices used by ticket touts

As Wales’ capital prepares to host a series of major music acts this summer, reporter Steffan Powell is looking into the murky world of ticket touts for new BBC Cymru Wales programme, The Great Ticket Rip-Off, airing on BBC One Wales and iPlayer on Thursday 26 June.

The programme has found that ticket touts are employing huge teams of people overseas, known as “ticket pullers”, to bulk-buy thousands of tickets for UK concerts like Oasis and Taylor Swift as soon as they go on sale so they can be sold on for huge profits.

The BBC investigation reveals that these tickets pullers can buy tickets using illegal automated software and multiple identities – which could amount to fraud.

Oasis reunion

It comes as Oasis begin their reunion tour in Cardiff on 4 July – last summer thousands of music fans were left frustrated after spending hours in online queues and failing to get tickets for the sell-out tour.

As part of the programme, Steffan Powell posed as a would-be ticket tout and recorded the boss of a ticket pulling company in Pakistan who said they could provide a team of pullers for him – meaning they could potentially buy hundreds of gig tickets.

The man, calling himself Ali, boasted to Steffan that his team bought hundreds of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour last year, along with other major gigs, claiming touts are making “millions” from the practice.

Ali said: “I think we had 300 Coldplay tickets, 330, something like that. And then we had Oasis in the same week – we did great,” Ali said he knew of one UK tout who made more than £500,000 last year doing this while others are “making millions”.

Another ticket pulling boss, based in India, explained how they get around the laws in the UK. He said: “If I’m sitting in your country and running my operations in your country, then it is completely illegal. We do not participate in illegal things because actually we are outside of the UK.”

Secret online group

Reg Walker, who has worked in the ticketing industry for almost 40 years, told the programme how he had infiltrated a secret online group that claims to have secured thousands of tickets using underhand methods.

He explained how members of this group can generate 100,000 “queue passes” – effectively allowing them to bypass the software that creates an online queue for gigs.

“The equivalent is 100,000 people all of a sudden turning up and pushing in front of you in the queue,” he said. “So now you’ve gone from first in the queue to 100,001. This is the perfect example of how touts block genuine fans out from the ability to buy tickets.”

The UK Government is planning new legislation to crackdown on some practices of touts. A spokesperson for the UK Government said: “We have consulted on a range of measures, including a price cap on ticket resales, as we aim to better protect fans and support the growth of the UK’s world leading live events and sport sectors.”

Scams & Scandals: The Great Ticket Rip-Off airs at 8:30pm on BBC One Wales and is available on iPlayer from midnight on 26 June.