Scalpers Play Scrooge in Boston

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We've all heard the stories about eager entrepreneurs scooping up the choice tickets for an event and then reselling them for ridiculous profits. Maybe you've turned to one of these folks in your desperation to get a good seat at the upcoming football game or Bon Jovi concert. Maybe you've been one of those folks.

But when these opportunistic resellers gobble up tickets that were meant to be free to the public and then charge up to $500 apiece, is that going too far?

WalletPop reports that the city of Boston was distributing free tickets to skate on a rink erected at Fenway Park for the Jan. 1 outdoor hockey game between the hometown Bruins and the Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA ) co-owned Philadelphia Flyers. The rink will be available to the public for skating on Jan. 3 and Jan. 10, and the city distributed tickets on a first-come basis through schools and libraries.

But lined up for tickets, along with the kids who never get a chance to visit frequently sold-out Fenway, were known scalpers who saw visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads. Lots of hopeful residents went home without any Christmas cheer, while the free tickets resurfaced on the likes of Craigslist and eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY ) for as much as $500 each. "No sob stories please," wrote one joyous soul asking $1,800 for a set of four tickets. Ho-ho-ho to you, too.

Ticketing services such as Ticketmaster (Nasdaq: TKTM ) and Live Nation (NYSE: LYV ) have put CAPTCHA technology in place to try to prevent scalpers from using automated software to snatch event tickets ahead of the rest of the public. But when you're standing in line trying to get a free ticket, there's not much anyone can do -- except grumble about the lack of Christmas spirit among those who would rather receive than give.

What's your take, Fools? Is this Scrooge-like greed at its ugliest, or just an example of the free market at work? Light up the comments box below, and the Fool will donate $0.10 for each comment to the Thurgood Marshall Academy in Washington, D.C., in furtherance of financial literacy. Now that's keeping in the Christmas spirit.

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Fool online editor Adrian Rush always figured the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come could get a job as a goth rocker, if the scaring-cranky-old-men thing didn't work out. He has no position in any of the stocks mentioned here. Motley Fool Options has recommended a bull call spread on eBay, which is also a Stock Advisor recommendation. The Fool's disclosure policy has its stockings hung by the chimney with care.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:06 PM, pondee619 wrote:

There is a cost to everything.Either standing in line and getting lucky or paying at the market. Did they limit the number of tickets any one person could get at a time? If not, what did the organizers expect? Did anyone really check to see who is selling those tickets? 500 bucks could go a long way in making someone's christmas/life in hard economic times a little brighter in lieu of seeing Fenway. If my child scored a pair of free tickets and wanted to sell them on E-Bay for a couple of hundred, I'd probaly let her.
How many scalpers are prowling the halls of Boston schools?
Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:06 PM, pondee619 wrote:
Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:11 PM, Sivitriq wrote:

Ticket re-sellers are the worst, holiday or no holiday. Unfortunately, human nature will always encourage this type of behavior. As long as people are willing to pay there will also be people willing to sell.
It's horrible that they are allowed to resell "free" tickets just like it's horrible that a parent has to pay $500 to take their child to see Miley Cyrus when the original tickets were only $40 or so. As long as people are willing to pay the prices, scalpers will never go away. Once society realizes that they are better off not paying top dollar for cheap seats and they can have a better time reading a book at home with their family, the scalpers will have to eat their tickets and re-consider their miserable tactics.
Society will always pay though and scrooges will always find a way to slap Tiny Tim in the face.
Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 1:00 PM, BossMcGinty wrote:

Agree with Sivitriq. Any kind of business requires both a supply and a demand. If people keep buying scalped tickets, scalpers will continue to thrive. Unfortunately there are enough people out there with tons of money to throw away who don't care whether they are enabling these leeches to continue to thrive.

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Scalpers Play Scrooge in Boston

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Comments from our Foolish Readers

Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:06 PM, pondee619 wrote:

Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:06 PM, pondee619 wrote:

Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 12:11 PM, Sivitriq wrote:

Report this Comment On December 23, 2009, at 1:00 PM, BossMcGinty wrote:

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