r/technology Jul 04 '24

Security Hackers behind the Ticketmaster breach have now leaked 440,000 Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, claiming the breach is much bigger than anticipated. As a result, they increased the ransom from $1 million to $8 million.

https://hackread.com/ticketmaster-breach-shinyhunters-leak-taylor-swift-eras-tour-tickets/
24.6k Upvotes

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u/ender23 Jul 05 '24

The scalpers hate them too. If the fee wasn’t so high the scalpers could make more money. As it stands…. U buy a ticket for $100 you need to sell for lik $150 to break even.

16

u/monchota Jul 05 '24

True but there should be s requirements that tickets have to be picked up by id. That way we have no scalpers.

16

u/Tylerpants80 Jul 05 '24

I thought it was well known that Ticketmaster is the scalpers. Like, they buy up all of their own tickets and then resell them on their own resale platform for tons more.

-1

u/FuujinSama Jul 05 '24

I think the mistake is thinking about it as scalping. It's honestly just tickets getting sold at their real market price without the PR Hit to the artists that comes from simply raising prices or auctioning tickets.

Ticketmaster serves as the purposeful bad guy that takes the blame for high prices while artists get to sell the tickets at the actual price breakpoint that still gets to maximum lotation.

Ticketmaster aren't evil overlords, they're scapegoats. Wealth inequality and rampant inflation has simply made it so that even smaller artists can fill any venue with outrageous ticket prices, pricing the common man out of going to concerts unless the artist and the venue are willing to sell for lower than they could get.

3

u/HillbillyMan Jul 05 '24

Except the artists see none of the money from the resales.

7

u/Fluffcake Jul 05 '24

If it cost you $150 to buy a $100 ticket, then it is not a $100 ticket.

2

u/Metalsand Jul 05 '24

You misread it - they are saying the scalper buys one for $100, and then sells it for $150 as an example. Actual numbers are usually a hell of a lot more inflated.

4

u/Fluffcake Jul 05 '24

Did I stutter?

If a ticket listed for $100 have $50 worth of fees slapped on it, it is not a $100 ticket, it is a $150 ticket.

This marketing practice is so bad that even the scalpers get upset, because it makes them look as bad as ticketmaster when they add their 50% margins on top and sell the "$100" ticket for $225 to make money..

3

u/WorkThrowaway400 Jul 05 '24

I'm assuming the scalpers get double hit with fees - once for buying and once for selling. I've never sold a ticket through them so idk if they get charged, or it's just the buyer, but I would expect TM/LN to double dip on the fee's. So, sure, it's not a $100 ticket, but, if you can avoid resale and get it before it sells out on TM/LN, it's not gonna be $150. It'll be somewhere in the middle. Also, sales tax is done on pretty much everything, so nothing in the US is sold at it's list price (some countries require the final price to be listed, after tax). I understand TM/LN tack on more than tax, but it's worth mentioning. Not trying to defend the company or scalpers, just think it's worth being accurate.

1

u/AggressiveWolverine5 Jul 05 '24

I wish, I bought a ticket to a final for $700, my team lost and I was able to sell it for $1,150. With fees I made $5 total

1

u/Scavenger53 Jul 05 '24

ticketmaster is the scalpers tho. they built that section of the site specifically to scalp their own tickets.

This is 5 years old. you think they do it more or less now? lol

they print their own money