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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

What happens if someone does sell one of these tickets for over face? Will it get cancelled, the scalper refunded (in addition to the sale value), then the person who bought it gets screwed?

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The terms during purchase made it sound like if they discovered a ticket was sold for higher than $45, then they would cancel the ticket without refund. So both buyer and seller get screwed.

This doesn't match the text on the site: "If the ticket is found to be offered for resale above face value we may invalidate the barcode and refund the ticket price."

It's not clear who gets the refund here. If the scalper, then he has no risk, and earns both the money he sold it for AND the refund of the original fee. Win! This is also likely the only refund they can do since they don't have the credit card number of the person who bought the scalped ticket.

If they refund the final purchaser, then the scalper still makes his money and the purchaser loses the amount above the face value.

In both scenarios, the scalper makes his money, or even more than he would have otherwise.

If the final purchaser is aware that their high-price ticket could be nullified at the door, it removes motive to buy in the first place, leaving the scalper with hard-to-move tickets.

He probably eats a charge back from the customer meaning he makes nothing if found out.

Perhaps the refund isn't digital? I.e. you get refunded at the entrance if you have a scalped ticket

That would make the most sense and is how I read the language. You're free to go buy an $80 scalped ticket if you want. But if they can figure out it was scalped, they'll just cancel the ticket and refund your $45 ticket price right at the show.

I don't understand the legal theory here. In the US, scalping laws vary state to state, but I've never heard of "invalidating" a ticket. Seems like I ought to scalp a bunch of tickets and go splitsies with the guy in charge of invalidating.

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