Two convicted fraudsters have been caught using Ticketmaster to sell thousands of pounds’ worth of Ed Sheeran tickets.
The husband and wife, Michael Mayiger and Michelle Meiger, were convicted of a £2m fraud in 2012 after admitting to using pseudonyms to acquire Premier League football club memberships.
They used the memberships to obtain and sell hundreds of tickets, some of which did not exist.
Mayiger’s name appeared as the seller of tickets for Ed Sheeran at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow on Seatwave, a resale website owned by Ticketmaster.
It has fuelled concerns among campaigners about the anonymity of touts who use secondary ticketing websites, according to UK newspaper the Guardian.
Sister website, GetMeIn! by Alpha Group Services, listed more tickets operating from an address in Borehamwood registered to Mayiger.
Between them, Mayiger and Alpha Group Services list dozens of tickets at several times their face value, with a combined value of at least £15,000.
Mayiger is one of Ticketmaster’s “trusted sellers”, meaning he has been vetted by the company.
“The seller has sold tickets to music fans on our secondary ticketing platforms for many years legitimately without issue,” said a spokesperson for Ticketmaster, adding that its sites were “safe and secure marketplaces”.
However, nearly 200 fans, which bought tickets via Seatwave, were turned away at a Black Sabbath gig at the 02 Arena after the venue detected fraudulent activity.
GetMeIn and Seatwave have recently begun publishing sellers’ details, and campaigners for reform of ticketing said that the disclosure of the sites’ relationship with a convicted fraudster raised concerns about the anonymity of touts using sites such as Viagogo and StubHub, which make no such disclosure.
“This is a perfect example of why transparency is necessary to ensure fans have all the information at their fingertips so they are not ripped off by touts with who are known ticket fraudsters,” said Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse.
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