Contact Consumer Protection
Tel: 1300 304 054
consumer@dmirs.wa.gov.au
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In WA, from 10 September 2021, it is against the law to resell tickets that are first sold or supplied by the authorised seller for above 110 per cent of the original cost, if the tickets have a resale restriction. A resale restriction is a term or condition on a ticket that limits the circumstances in which the ticket may be resold.
The law defines event organisers as the person (including a corporation) who authorises the first supply of tickets to an event. This is determined by the contractual arrangements for the staging of the entertainment or sporting event. An event organiser can authorise package deals where tickets are sold in conjunction with other goods or services (such as dinner and show deals).
You must not cancel a ticket on the basis it was resold, if it was sold in accordance with the new laws. This is to protect the legitimate right of consumers to recover their costs if they can no longer attend an event.
While anti-scalping laws aim to reduce the profitability of the practice, to further prevent or reduce scalping event organisers can also consider:
A publication owner may be a ticket resale site operator (such as Viagogo, Ticketmaster Resale, Ticketek Marketplace, StubHub, Twickets), a social media or general sale platform that hosts ticket resale advertisements (such as Facebook or eBay), a newspaper or magazine publisher. The publication can be online or in printed form.
The ticket scalping laws make it an offence for publication owners to publish a prohibited advertisement.
From 10 September 2021, any advertisement to resell a ticket must include the following information or it is considered to be a prohibited advertisement:
The laws include certain defences against a prosecution for publishing prohibited advertisements.
Reasonable steps publication owners can consider taking to avoid publishing prohibited advertisements include:
Consumer Protection will consider its Compliance and Enforcement Policy when deciding what action to take against breaches of the law. The policy sets out a series of escalating options for enforcement, from education to achieve compliance through to warnings, imposition of penalties and prosecution.
Publication owners may be issued with a $2,000 infringement notice. Offenders may also be prosecuted and could face a maximum fine of $20,000 for individuals and $100,000 for companies.
Even higher penalties of up to $500,000 apply for those using ‘bots’ to purchase tickets.
Authorised officers from Consumer Protection may issue a penalty infringement notice for any of the offences under the laws, including one-off breaches.
There are consumer-focussed FAQs on our Ticket scalping and reselling page.
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