EBay cancels Live 8 ticket auctions after Geldof calls for boycott

by Staff, Brand Republic 15-Jun-05, 08:45

LONDON - EBay has pulled Live 8 auctions on its site after supporters began entering massive bids for tickets, one as high as £10m, as ticket touts attempted to profit from the free tickets.

Live 8 organiser Bob Geldof yesterday called on fans to sabotage the eBay auctions to prevent touts profiting. A group of fans calling themselves the "Scum Busters" began entering massive bids for tickets throwing the auctions into disarray.

Geldof said he was considering taking legal action and labelled the touts "sick" and "wretches".

"What eBay is doing is profiteering on the backs of the impoverished. There is nothing illegal about it, but there is something wrong with it," he said.

Numerous pairs of tickets to the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park had appeared on eBay.co.uk yesterday.

When Geldof first contacted eBay to ask it to halt sales he was turned down. Geldof had been told that he should wait until there are 1,000 ticket offers before launching legal action in the High Court to make eBay take them down.

However, by last night eBay had changed its mind and said it would remove all tickets.

"Our customers would like us to take down the listing so we are going to. But we can not reverse sales that have closed," the company said.

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