<p>If the University’s ticketing website is running another website for the resale of these tickets at a significant profit, that is weird. However, if the University is merely identifying a resale website or has created a resale website for students to purchase “sold out” tickets and advising that student tickets can only be used by students, I have less problems with that. It may be that the University is trying to (a) cut down on scalping ticket prices (perhaps limiting the price to the face price) and (b) trying to make sure that student tickets only go to students.</p>
<p>There are a number of factors that need to be considered. First, tickets to any event with limited seating are by their nature a limited resource. There are probably few universities in the country that have stadiums or field houses that could accommodate all of the enrolled students if they all want to see a game. (And more than a few which could not fill their stadium or field house if they gave away tickets to anyone interested.)</p>
<p>Second, at least in my experience, when you purchase season tickets to anything, you get a “discount” on the total face value of your tickets. The season ticket seller is interested in selling that seat for all of the events that it is promoting. The season ticket purchaser recognizes that he is getting some events that he might not otherwise purchase a ticket for on an individual basis but gets the security of knowing that he has a ticket for the events that he really doesn’t want to miss.</p>
<p>Third, for some season tickets there is a significant likelihood that season tickets will be sold out quickly (or there is already a waiting line for the opportunity to buy season tickets). For those, people must get in line (real or virtual) as soon as possible and as pointed out above, that line may take a significant amount of the purchaser’s time and effort to be successful. If that season ticket purchaser wants to recover some of the value of his time and effort by reselling tickets it seems to be to be reasonable. And good luck getting even face value for those events which are not that popular.</p>
<p>In my experience, you will rarely see a full season of tickets to a series of events sold for greater than face value. What you see is the inflated price for a single highly desirable event. The purchaser did not want to pay to see a lot of other “less desirable” events and the seller is trying to recoup some of the money spent when he bought those tickets to those “less desirable” events. Some people would rather spend $50 to buy a ticket to the highly desirable event than to spend $100 to buy season tickets to all ten season events (and be stuck with the other nine).</p>
<p>deb in post 80 has overlooked another possibility- the school could also choose not to offer discounted tickets to students and make more money from ticket sales.</p>
<p>poetgrl - I did not read the OP’s post to mean that students could actually return unwanted tickets for a refund, but rather that in her ideal world that they “should be able to”.</p>
<p>The reason such would be unethical is because the retail clothing store makes it clear that your discounted purchase is for personal use only – either by you or as a gift to a family member. Some stores will also sanction the discount for family members, sans gift.</p>
<p>But clearly no such purchase restriction exists by the Uni; indeed, they encourage the opposite.</p>
<p>btw: selling the discounted clothes on a street corner would in fact be illegal, particularly without a business license and sales tax collection!</p>
<p>It’s a private transaction ~ student-to-student. It’s ridiculous to think that the behavior can be controlled, or someone shamed into another means of delivery/distribution. Scalping tickets goes on everywhere ~ if it’s something people want to see.</p>
<p>Snug, because scalping goes on “everywhere” does not make it ethical nor does a university making it “easy” for kids to scalp tickets seem ethical. There is a subtle difference since the university is limiting the seating for students.</p>
<p>If scalping is not illegal, and not even against the rules, I don’t understand how it can be unethical. If that were the case, stubhub would be out of business. </p>
<p>In the case of the employee reselling clothes purchased with an employee discount, there are two differences: first it’s against the rules, and secondly she is allowed to purchase many. Here the student is only allowed to purchase one ticket. If the student can then not attend, or chooses not to and it’s not against the rules, why should they not be allowed to sell their ticket if there’s a market for it. The purchaser is certainly not complaining.</p>
<p>Go on stubhub and see how much baseball playoff tickets are selling for right now. Same principle: season ticket holders are allowed to purchase tickets before the general pubic and then either cannot attend all games, or sell a couple to finance the rest. It’s NOT illegal and obviouslyy NOT against the rules.</p>
<p>This does not mean, in this case, that it is ethical. </p>
<p>Again, we are an increasingly unethical culture. It seems to me our institutions of higher learning are more and more ethically challenged as well. </p>
<p>If you cannot see the difference between an after market venture for professional sporting events and an after market ticket venture for discounted student tickets run for profit at the NCAA level, I don’t want you working for me or my company. </p>
<p>Well said. That’s how I feel, also, Poetgrl. I was so pleased that my son immediately understood the difference. We had a team building exercise yesterday around DISC profiles and it has occurred to me this week that I really don’t care much about people’s different personalities, but I do care about their ethics.</p>
<p>Apparently people have a different idea of what is ethical and what isn’t. That doesn’t make yours right or wrong. I do agree that you have a right to hire based on what your standards are. Assuming your standards are legal. I wouldn’t hire somebody who I consider to be unethical either. But I don’t see anything wrong with legally, morally and ethically reselling tickets that the school has no rule against doing.</p>
<p>this part, from post 93 “that the school has no rule against doing.”
shows part of what some see as difficulty defining ethical. It is not black and white, but it is not defined by laws or store policies.
3bm indicates clearly, if it’s against the law it’s wrong.
Clearly if it’s against school or store rules, it’s wrong.
To me, the last one is not so clear- ethics deal with moral principles- that may not be governed by law, store, or school rules. Some might define ethical as- anything I can get away with that isn’t against the law. Some would see insider trading- having special access of inside info to make a profit on selling stocks as ethical, but against the law.
Much of the question here isn’t covered by law. While some changed my retail store example to include store rules, and then addressed that, that doesn’t change my question about the ethics. Whether or not there is a store policy about re-selling goods does not determine if it is ethical or not.</p>
<p>Or here, though I’ve mentioned it more than once, so far, no one has disputed my opinion that the school offers discounted tickets to students to “give their students a break” on the cost of attending games. Since that part is so far undisputed, that’s why I believe buying discounted student tickets with the intent to re-sell for a profit is unethical. It is contrary to the intent of the school when they offered discounted tickets.</p>
<p>Sungapug No, it’s a private transaction when one student sells the ticket to another student face to face and calls the athletic office to change the student ID associated with the ticket. Using the university website is not private because the university is acting as intermediary through its agent and arranging the transaction.</p>
<p>It never occurred to me, till this thread, how many view obeying the law and following the rules as the standard for ethical and moral behavior. I think obeying the law and following the rules is usually the lowest possible acceptable standard for human interactions. Sometimes law and morality overlap, but they have less in common than not. IMHO</p>
<p>I don’t know if I was correct or incorrect in judging the ethics of the question posed in the OP. I would like to see an expert weigh in. However, it never occurred to me to make that decision based on what is legal. That really seemed beside the point. ymmv - pretty obviously </p>
<p>Don’t we all find some laws immoral? unjust?</p>
<p>If one school prohibits the practice it is likely because they have thought about it and decided it was unethical to resell student tickets at a profit. If another school does not specifically prohibit the practice, does that mean they have thought about it and decided it was not unethical, or have they simply not thought about (or dealt with) the issue. To me it is unethical, whether the school allows it or not.</p>
<p>Many localities have banned the practice of scalping tickets, making it illegal to resell tickets at more than face value. Are these laws based on ethics, someone’s view on what is right and wrong, or are these laws simply designed to protect ticket brokers?</p>
<p>Uh, that 's the way it works for just about all events. You can’t get all of the passes and tickets out there, and those who get them can sell them or give them away. There are scalping rules out there, but they are not often enforced. As far as scalping laws go, I don’t quite get that some of these companies like Stub Hub and others that make a living reselling tickets can charge up the whazoo in mark ups but it’s illegal for a guy on the street corner to scalp tickets. </p>
<p>At any number of schools, there are limited number of tickets for any things. That’s a “discrimination” that happens all of time. My son’s school has the same issue with their basketball tickets, but getting a single ticket at a reasonable price seems to be pretty easy He goes to any number of basketball games each season and doesn’t pay that much to go to them. For certain “hot” games, the prices can go way up there, but there are plenty of games at his schools that don’t.</p>