UK Ticket Touts Sentenced To Prison Time 

Ticket Touts Found Guilty Of Fraudulent Trading In The U.K.
Tim Clayton/Fairfax Media via Getty Images – Ticket Touts Found Guilty Of Fraudulent Trading In The U.K.
The verdict of Leeds Crown Court is considered a landmark decision by opponents of for-profit ticket resale
Ticket touts Peter Hunter and David Smith, who resold tickets trading as Ticket Wiz and BZZ, were found guilty of fraudulent trading and possessing an article for fraud at Leeds Crown Court two weeks ago. Now they’ve been sentenced.
Hunter, aged 51, has to face four years in prison, while Smith, aged 66, was given 30 months – a total of six-and-a-half years jail time for fraudulently reselling tickets.
The pair ran BZZ Limited, through which they purchased and resold hundreds of tickets for events, plays and concerts that included Ed Sheeran, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Madness, McBusted and others.
According to court documentation, Hunter and Smith were “found guilty of fraudulent trading and possessing an article for use in fraud between 19 May 2010 and 13 December 2017.
The court described BZZ as “a company which purchased tickets for events and concerts online using computer bots with multiple identities and payment details in order to circumvent restrictions (and the terms and conditions) on the selling sites,” and noted that tickets were resold at inflated prices.
Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said: “This was a case of sustained dishonesty for a number of years ,” and told the defendants, “You were well aware [this] was a fraudulent enterprise you were perpetrating, and perpetrating in a very effective way.”
He sentenced Hunter and Smith on four counts: fraudulent trading by knowingly enabling BZZ Limited to purchase event tickets for resale and/or fraudulently reducing the number of event tickets available for consumers to purchase at face value. Count 2: Possession or control of an article for use in fraud, including the use of bots and debit/credit card payments held in the names of people other than BZZ Limited.
Count 3: Fraudulent trading, namely by offering for resale tickets which were at risk of being refused entry and/or falsely representing that said event tickets offered for resale were valid. Count 4: Fraudulent trading, by listing and offering event tickets on secondary ticket websites that they did not own, and/or falsely representing that BZZ Limited did own the said event tickets (spec selling).
Ticket Touts
Keystone/Getty Images – Ticket Touts
Fulham supporters buy two-shilling tickets for ten shillings outside the ground at Craven Cottage soccer stadium for the cup-tie match against Bristol Rovers. Most in this business don’t have a problem with touts outside of stadiums, but with touts operating on a mass scale online.

According to the U.K.’s consumer protection agency National Trading Standards, which had investigated Hunter and Smith’s business and subsequently brought the prosecution, both men made a net profit of £3.5 million ($4.5 million) in the last three months of the fraud.

Toby Harris, chair of National Trading Standards, called the sentencing of Harris and Smith “an important milestone in the fight to tackle online ticket touts who fraudulently buy and resell tickets to thousands of victims to line their own pockets.”
He said the sentences sent “a strong message to similar online ticket touts: these are criminal offences that can lead to prison sentences,” and hopes “this leads to a step-change in the secondary ticketing market, making it easier and safer for consumers buying tickets in the future.”
Adam Webb, campaign manager of the U.K.’s FanFair Alliance, commented: “Today’s sentences represent a major blow to online ticket touts who break the law and rip off the public. 
“It’s a fantastic result for National Trading Standards and for music lovers across the U.K., and should also send shockwaves through the likes of Viagogo and StubHub whose businesses are dependent upon large-scale resellers.  
“By facilitating the activities of online touts, there must be concerns that the platforms themselves are profiting from the sale of tickets unlawfully acquired by their biggest suppliers. This should be investigated as a matter of urgency, and lead to action against those platforms if they have benefitted from the proceeds of criminality.”
In 2018, the Fair Ticketing Alliance (FTA) was launched to work with the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority and Trading Standards to develop a framework that allows ticket resellers to operate in a regulated ecosystem that allows for a free-market ticket exchange. 
Its chairman Stephen Lee told Pollstar at the time that there was a new breed of brokers, who are honorable businessmen, who provide a service for which there is a clear demand, and that these businesses should be a part of the ticketing ecosystem alongside primary sellers and fan-to-fan ticket exchanges.
Pollstar had reached out to the FTA for comment on the case of Hunter and Smith, and was sent the following statement: “The FTA is committed to working with all authorities and enforcement agencies to help ensure the ticket resale industry in this country operates in a positive and open way that benefits consumers. Of course it is important that all traders follow the law – but it is equally important that traders know the specific laws and legislation they need to be following. 
“This case has been described as complex and landmark because its the first of its kind, and hopefully at the very least it will provide some much-needed clarity that moving forward everyone understands.”