DON'T EBAY AROUND HERE NO MORE

Annoyed that some people have been selling tickets at an unfair mark-up (because, after all, that's their job), Ticketmaster have cancelled a slew of tickets for Tom Petty and Pearl Jam's US dates.

The 460 tickets which have been expunged are going to be put onsale again, this time with demands for (of course) photo ID to let Ticketmaster pretend it's some sort of government agency. The company have worked with Tom Petty's management to deduce which of the the tickets sold for the shows were being offered for resale on eBay, although it's not clear what methodology they used; nor if there's any room for appeal if you've had your ticket unfairly cancelled (because, let's face it, Ticketmaster aren't exactly CSI, are they?). It's unlikely that TM's mysterious booking fees will be repaid, either, which makes a great business for them selling tickets twice.

We would hope that the company also announces that the interest they made having 460 lots of cash sat in their bank account will be donated to charity - even at the lowest ticket price they'd have made about twenty-two thousand dollars on these tickets, which could have churned up quite a tidy sum sat in Ticketmaster's bank for a couple of months. Because if the public can't make money from ticket touts, then why should Ticketmaster?

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