Couple 'earned £250k' from Ashes ticket touting.

A couple from Buckinghamshire, who are believed to have earned more than £250,000 touting Ashes tickets this summer, have been served with a High Court injunction by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Nicholas and Judith Hubscher, from Marlow, were accused of “touting on an industrial scale” by the ECB, which successfully brought a civil action against the couple in the High Court preventing them from buying international match tickets in the future.

The pair were found to have touted around 800 tickets with a face value of £50-£100 during Tests at the Oval, Old Trafford and Durham. The tickets were sold for inflated prices, believed to be sometimes more than £300, on third-party ticketing websites such as Viagogo and Seatwave.

“This was touting on an industrial scale which the ECB is firmly opposed to and determined to stamp out,” said an ECB spokesman. “We welcome the result of this court action as a major step forward in our ongoing efforts to eradicate ticket touting at all our international venues.”

It is only a criminal offence to tout football tickets, a measure brought in during the Nineties to combat hooliganism. The ECB took out a civil action for breach of contract. The Hubschers used various identities to buy multiple Ashes tickets before selling them on, which breaks the terms and conditions printed on the tickets.

This summer, the ECB launched a poster campaign against the resale of tickets entitled “Touts out” following unprecedented demand for tickets.

They increased security checks at Test venues and the Hubscher’s touting was uncovered by groundstaff during the fourth Test at Durham last month.
The civil action was brought by the ECB on behalf of Durham, Surrey and Lancashire as it is the counties who sell tickets to the public.

Overall, the ECB cancelled around 600 tickets and blacklisted fans reselling online, preventing them from buying tickets in future.

The fight against touting is not restricted to third-party reselling auction websites. At Old Trafford, police arrested five touts outside the ground on the first two days of the third Ashes Test. They were arrested for selling without a pedlar’s certificate from the council, the only grounds the police could take action.

At Lord’s this summer, around 20 Australia fans bought fake tickets, paying up to £200, from touts outside St John’s Wood underground station. They realised the tickets were forgeries when they found the seats were occupied and the MCC could not offer them alternatives because the ground was sold out.

Culled from The Telegraph.