Live 8 tickets for sale on eBay
Keith Parkins | 15.06.2005 14:47 | G8 2005 | Analysis | Globalisation | London
The sale of Live 8 tickets on eBay was nothing less than sick profiteering, eBay acting as pimps for scumbags profiteering off the backs of the world's poorest people.
'I am sick with this. It is a disgrace. It is completely against the interests of the poor. The people who are selling these tickets on websites are miserable wretches who are capitalising on people's misery. I am appealing to their sense of decency to stop this disgusting greed.' -- Bob Geldof
'There's nothing illegal about what they're doing unfortunately but there is something wrong with it and everyone in this entire country knows why it's wrong. It is not acceptable is that a giant electronic company that makes billions upon billions then morally says we will just hand over our take to a charity. It is filthy money made on the back of the poorest people on the planet. Stick it where it belongs.' -- Bob Geldof
'We are allowing the tickets because we live in a free market where people can make up their own minds about what the can buy and sell.' -- eBay
'I wholeheartedly share the concert organisers' deep annoyance that some of these tickets appear to be changing hands for many thousands of pounds.' -- James Purnell, Culture Minister
'We have listened to eBay's community of users and the message has been clear. They do not want the tickets to be sold. Once we are made aware of any Live 8 tickets being resold, they will be taken down.' -- eBay
Within hours of the tickets for the Hyde Park concert being released they were being sold on eBay. A concert to raise awareness of poverty and scumbags were already making money off the back of it.
At first, eBay, when asked to remove the tickets for sale, initially refused, earning themselves the name of 'pimps', but within hours they were forced to back down, but the damage had already been done to what little reputation eBay had left.
eBay is rapidly becoming the place for crooks to shift their dodgy goods. Dodgy goods are no longer shifted in pubs, off the back of a lorry, or down the car boot market, they are shifted on eBay. And as buyers find to their cost, eBay has no legal responsibility to act to either recover the money or compensate the buyer.
eBay should have acted immediately to remove the Live 8 Tickets from sale, barred those selling and buying the tickets from eBay, and eBay make a substantial donation to the Band Aid Trust, of at least 100 times the bid price for the tickets. Not as eBay did, drag their feet, threatened to ban those who were screwing the auction by making bids of millions of dollars, then offered to donate their cut, which Geldof told then quite rightly where to stick it.
eBay has an annual turnover of £1.8 billion, last year they made a profit of £430 million.
Another has-been politician has jumped on the bandwagon of lets put the boot in on Geldof. The latest to jump on the bandwagon to fan a fading political career, is former Liberal Party leader David Steel. This is the man who applauded past communists leaders in Ester Europe.
Reference
eBay prevents Live 8 ticket sales, BBC news on-line, 15 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4090774.stm
Geldof blasts 'sick' eBay sales, BBC news on-line, 14 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4090774.stm
Live 8 eBay high bidders banned, BBC news on-line, 15 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4095464.stm
Cahil Milmo, eBay bans sale of Live8 Tickets after 'electronic pimp' accusation', The Independent 15 June 2005
Steel fears for Geldof 'ego trip', BBC news on-line, 13 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4088878.stm
'There's nothing illegal about what they're doing unfortunately but there is something wrong with it and everyone in this entire country knows why it's wrong. It is not acceptable is that a giant electronic company that makes billions upon billions then morally says we will just hand over our take to a charity. It is filthy money made on the back of the poorest people on the planet. Stick it where it belongs.' -- Bob Geldof
'We are allowing the tickets because we live in a free market where people can make up their own minds about what the can buy and sell.' -- eBay
'I wholeheartedly share the concert organisers' deep annoyance that some of these tickets appear to be changing hands for many thousands of pounds.' -- James Purnell, Culture Minister
'We have listened to eBay's community of users and the message has been clear. They do not want the tickets to be sold. Once we are made aware of any Live 8 tickets being resold, they will be taken down.' -- eBay
Within hours of the tickets for the Hyde Park concert being released they were being sold on eBay. A concert to raise awareness of poverty and scumbags were already making money off the back of it.
At first, eBay, when asked to remove the tickets for sale, initially refused, earning themselves the name of 'pimps', but within hours they were forced to back down, but the damage had already been done to what little reputation eBay had left.
eBay is rapidly becoming the place for crooks to shift their dodgy goods. Dodgy goods are no longer shifted in pubs, off the back of a lorry, or down the car boot market, they are shifted on eBay. And as buyers find to their cost, eBay has no legal responsibility to act to either recover the money or compensate the buyer.
eBay should have acted immediately to remove the Live 8 Tickets from sale, barred those selling and buying the tickets from eBay, and eBay make a substantial donation to the Band Aid Trust, of at least 100 times the bid price for the tickets. Not as eBay did, drag their feet, threatened to ban those who were screwing the auction by making bids of millions of dollars, then offered to donate their cut, which Geldof told then quite rightly where to stick it.
eBay has an annual turnover of £1.8 billion, last year they made a profit of £430 million.
Another has-been politician has jumped on the bandwagon of lets put the boot in on Geldof. The latest to jump on the bandwagon to fan a fading political career, is former Liberal Party leader David Steel. This is the man who applauded past communists leaders in Ester Europe.
Reference
eBay prevents Live 8 ticket sales, BBC news on-line, 15 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4090774.stm Geldof blasts 'sick' eBay sales, BBC news on-line, 14 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4090774.stm Live 8 eBay high bidders banned, BBC news on-line, 15 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4095464.stm Cahil Milmo, eBay bans sale of Live8 Tickets after 'electronic pimp' accusation', The Independent 15 June 2005
Steel fears for Geldof 'ego trip', BBC news on-line, 13 June 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4088878.stm
Keith Parkins
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Maybe...
15.06.2005 15:56
It was individuals who were selling the tickets. Which shows what some people think of this Live 8 thing. Why were several hundred people trying to profit from the tickets they won on a lottery. Because they see it as just another gig! It's not going to change what G8 ministers are going to do is it?
Just a thought...
ekes
Steel?
15.06.2005 16:15
(it's not some linguistic confusion over Stalin's nickname 'Man of Steel' is it?)
erm
Steel backs down
16.06.2005 15:30
Steel is now offering his home Aikwood Tower as somewhere for protesters to doss.
Steel was so friendly with one Stalinist leader that he gave a dog as a present which was named after him!
keith
Steady on, mate
17.06.2005 15:18
Surely all Steel was doing was attack Geldof and not the Make Poverty History events themselves. Saying "some of Geldof's "populist antics" risked destroying his well-deserved reputation for raising awareness of Africa's plight" as the BBC puts it, is hardly controversal.
Why don`t you get annoyed at how the Sri Lanken goverment forced Oxfam to pay tax on trucks used in the tsunami relief effort instead.
Geldolf`s Smiling Eyes