eBay MD Mark Lewis speaks up for eBay ticket sellers

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It’s not often you see Mark Lewis write an article which is published in the national press, but yesterday he spoke up about the resale of concert and sporting tickets in the Guardian.

The article covers his thoughts on the difficulty fans have in legitimately obtaining tickets, the punitive restrictions on those with tickets who are then unable to attend the event and wish to resell them and the fact that often if a ticket is resold the promoter simply invalidates it and keeps the money they were originally paid.

Like most people, the users of eBay (of which I am UK manager) take for granted that if you pay for something with your own cash, you’re free to sell it at the best price you can get. No one would dream of telling you what price to sell an unwanted CD for. If someone has an unwanted ticket, why shouldn’t they have the right to sell it at the price someone else is willing to pay, just like anything else?
– Mark Lewis, eBay UK Managing Director

It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of ticket sales on eBay are not traders but simply wish to dispose of tickets for events they no longer wish to attend – according to Mark 60% of eBay users that sold tickets in the last year only sold a single ticket – they’re not professional ticket touts.

It’s great to see the leader of eBay UK use his name and the influence of eBay to protect sellers rights. Bravo Mark, more of the same please 🙂

10 Responses

  1. I can never get my head round why there is such an uproar about tickets

    no one minds when you make a few thousand or more on a house sale , yet if you flog a ticket for more than face value, your branded a vagabond and a spiv

  2. because when you sell your house you stopping a “real house fan” from buying one

    or some such rubbish

  3. If people are reselling your tickets for a profit that might be an indication that you need to raise your prices. If these people have a problem with making extra money they could just donate the rest. I remember when the Wii shortage happened everyone blamed the eBay sellers instead of blaming Nintendo.

  4. @Whirly – He was perfectly normal last time I saw him, albeit that was best part of a year ago so there’s always a chance he’s changed. What word would you prefer instead of “leader”? 😀

  5. I dunno Chris, I always imagine leaders to be in charge of cults or far right wing governments 😆

    Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the party, all quiet on the western front, touch wood…another 3+ months of selling with no fiddling would be a god send.

  6. Führer is “leader” or “guide” in the German language, derived from the verb führen ‘to lead’.

  7. @ # 8

    I recently put my resume on file with eBay and when they parsed it out looking for job titles the system concluded that I was “World Leader” back in 2008. I took a screenshot.

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