Redemption song

It always feels nice to bring someone in from the cold, to save a wayward soul, to drag someone back from the dark side. Or, as was the case here, to help a practising ticket tout see the error of his ways.
As part of the on-going Out-A-Tout campaign, Hot Press has been getting in contact with those selling tickets over their face value on eBay through our username ‘outatout’.
The questions vary, depending on our mood. “Where do you get your tickets from?” “How can you justify asking so much for a single ticket?” And so on...
The latter question was a particular favourite to ask touts selling tickets for Justin Timberlake’s ill-fated late-night gig in Vicar Street for two reasons.
First, on average tickets were being offered at the extortionate price of €200; and, secondly, the question contains a pun that amused us greatly (we’re easily amused).
As you might expect, responses were few and far between. But one particular email exchange proved to be very interesting.
‘Horseballs22’, as he is know on eBay, was selling two standing tickets to Justin Timberlake’s The Show After The Show (which was ultimately cancelled) at a starting bid of €380 (the original combined face value was €162.50 for the pair).
He was asked to justify the price – and whether he knew that selling tickets above face value is in breach of Ticketmaster’s terms and conditions, which might see the tickets being voided on any unfortunate purchaser.
‘Horseballs22’ responded: “Life’s a bitch. And to add insult to injury, I found out about the gig from Stuart Clarke from hotpress. Hahaha!!!”
Presuming this cheeky response was a reference to Stuart's appearance on Matt Cooper's The Last Word, I thought I'd have a bit of fun back. "Anyone charging that much for a ticket cannot be a real music fan," I said. "You are quite simply an opportunist of the worst kind. However, if you’d like to send me your name and phone number I’d love to talk some more about the subject.”
He then emailed the contact details “Donald Duck 001 201 554 214879” – adding that €190 for a ticket is the same as Madonna charges and, he added, “she’s crap”. But that wasn't all. “P.S. You’re dead right, I hate music," he said. "Do you need tickets for the Leinster Final???”
hotpress then thanked Mr. Duck for his speedy reply, declined his Leinster final offer and asked him how he got possession of Timberlake tickets in the first place. He said, “Speed won the day on Monday morning. Supply and demand my friend.”
“That’s a fair point," I said in response, but I decided to lay it on a bit thick to see if I could break his defences down. "But what about the ethical quandary that comes with knowing that you are preying on other people’s genuine willingness to see their favourite artist. I suppose the point I’m trying to make is this – how do you sleep at night?” His response? “I sleep very well at night. End of correspondences. Capitalism... WOO HOO.”
hotpress didn’t feel like this was an adequate end to the correspondence, as we had still to ascertain the true identity of ‘horseballs22’/Donald Duck. Which we did. Applying some old-fashioned investigative journalistic work (the email address he was using was from a corporate server), hotpress was able to ring the individual (to whom we have given the soubriquet Mr.Silly) a senior auditor, as it turns out, with a well known financial services practice, on his direct line.
hotpress asked Mr. Silly if he’d like to comment on the fact that he was selling tickets well above their face value and that his name was going to appear in the next edition of hotpress revealing just that information. “Not really, no,” he said. We asked if he was sure. He confirmed he had nothing to say, and the conversation came to an end.
For the record, it was only after careful consideration, that – in this instance – Hot Press decided not to name the individual because, there is a risk that he would lose his job, and we don’t want to be responsible for wrecking someone’s career.
We made this decision, in part at least, because Mr Silly had a change of heart. An hour after our phone conversation, hotpress received another email, this time directly from his work-based email account, instead of through eBay.
He said that he was not aware that the re-sale of tickets above their face value was against Ticketmaster’s terms and conditions. “I de-listed the tickets at 13:53 today from eBay,” he said. “I am going to give them to a friend of mine who is a big fan. Lesson learned.”
I got right back to him telling him it was good that he had seen the error of his ways (I was laying it on a bit thick again) and that we hoped that his friend would enjoy the concert. As luck would have it, the gig ended up being cancelled anyway. But that one former tout has been persuaded to throw in the towel as a result of the gig is no bad thing.