Scalping - good or bad?

It is just appalling. U2 were doing a very good thing by selling a portion of the tickets at prices that we can afford. Creating a shortage by buying up all the tickets, and then claiming the demand for tickets is justification of the outrageous prices is dishonest and opportunistic. I think these people are the laziest scum and they are robbing not only the average person on an average income who should have had an opportunity to purchase the tickets, but also robbing the artist of that profit - the profit which they decided to give back to us by selling cheap tickets. It's against Ticketek's terms and conditions to onsell the tickets for a profit, and just by the way: Trade Me have been fairly decent about removing auctions that have been 'reported' as against TradeMe's rules. If you're looking at an auction that reeks of opportunistic lazy lowlives, then report it and you won't wait long to get the letter from TradeMe confirming that they have removed the auction.

It's got to be stopped, these people are just leeches. Most of the ones I saw on Trade me were "oh my friends got better seats and we want to be with them or my friends changed their minds" What BS, sell them for what you paid if you're honest but otherwise wouldn't your friends have told you their plans.

Scalping is bad and needs to be made illegal.

surely this is the free market in action the basis of our economy theres nothing wrong with buying an item and then to make a profit from its sale its just business I dont see that there is any problem here.

I don't agree with scalping but lets be honest...While there is a demand then scalping will always supply.
Limiting tickets would not work either because some people would just get "teams" together to purchase supply of tickets. There are more important things in the world to worry about for all you worry warts. Have a simply spiffing day. We all still alive & rocking in ChCh...we are lucky !

Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body, or a living person.
Scalping is applied to provide a portable proof or trophy of prowess in war. Scalping is also associated with frontier warfare in North America, and was practiced by Native Americans, colonists, and frontiersmen over centuries of violent conflict.
Why are we even debating whether scalping is good or bad? In my opinion it is bad - would you want to be scalped???

I missed out on the first lot of tickets but no way would buy off trade me at inflated prices i hope i manage to get some for the second concert..i hope the people scalping are stuck with theirs now they have announced another concert...

Scalping shouldn't even be a word. It is simply trading, and I dread the day that trading becomes so caught up in legalese that we are forced to work for the state.

If someone bought two or more tickets to a show, found out a friend couldn't go, then decided to sell one of the extra tickets, that's fine. But if someone's deliberately buying tickets to a show so they can sell them for outrageous prices, that's something I would like to see stopped. I've missed out on a few events I really wanted to see because tickets sold extremely fast, only to later find those tickets on eBay or somewhere else for hundreds more than they're worth. It's especially agitating because I can barely afford to go to concerts at regular price.

The most frustrating thing is when scalpers try to defend their actions by claiming that the market dictates the price. This isn't entirely true, because by buying 8 tickets at a time, these maggots are creating a shortage which artificially inflates the price.

I don't think it would be that difficult to make scalping unattractive. Ticket purchases could be limited to 2 or 3 per customer; tickets could be issued in the name of the buyer, and that idividual would need to present ID upon arrival at the event; for those legitemate cases where people need to ditch their tickets, the promotors could offer to buy them back at face value (less a small handling fee if need be); Trade Me could certainly do more by insisting that concert tickets can only be listed as a 'buy now' for no more than their original purchase price.

Anyway, hopefully they'll announce a second concert, and some of these greedy douche bags will be stuck with their tickets.

I don't agree with scalping, it's not just the windfalls that the scalpers intend to make, the main disadvantage that if the event is canceled then refunds can only be given at face value. To be fair, to eliminate scalping the ticket promoters must observe the supply and demand factors when setting prices for tickets. $40 is obviously too low for a U2 concert and considering when they performed in 2006 - people were prepared to pay ten times that amount on TradeMe. Having more shows would also reduce demand and make scalping less appealing. It would be too difficult to ban scalping because people do sell their tickets for genuine reasons and an online auction is an effective way to find a buyer - they are the ones who dictate the price. The best thing you can do if you disagree with scalping is take a moral approach and simply avoid these auctions.