Regent director Sarah Anderson, in a statement yesterday, said international websites appeared to be bulk-buying tickets to events such as tomorrow night's Jim Jefferies comedy show in Dunedin and on-selling them for much higher prices.
TicketDirect was the only company authorised to sell tickets online to shows at the Regent Theatre, but overseas websites were on-selling some for up to three times the normal prices, with ''huge'' booking fees attached, she said.
The websites were also falsely claiming shows were sold out, except for tickets available from their sites, as part of efforts to inflate the market, Ms Anderson claimed.
That hurt customers, who were paying ''far too much'', and also the viability of touring shows, she said.
''We, like our patrons, are increasingly frustrated when they end up getting a raw deal by being inadvertently sucked into a scam, in effect.''
Legal advice suggested the websites' activities were not illegal, but ''unhelpful'', she said.
''I don't think people are going to find the ticket they bought doesn't exist, but they may find that they've paid much more than they needed to.
''That is a concern.''
The practice appeared to have become ''more problematic'' in the past 18 months, and venue operators and promoters were now collaborating more closely to try to educate the public and ''pop the balloon'', she said.
One of the offending websites was Viagogo.com, she said.
It had been advertising tickets to Jim Jefferies and The Pink Floyd Experience at inflated prices, while claiming the event was otherwise sold out, she said.
''This is absolutely not the case . . . Neither have yet sold out,'' she said.
Category A tickets to the clash between the Highlanders and the British and Irish Lions at Forsyth Barr Stadium in June are selling for $298 on the website.
Category A tickets normally sell for $129.
Elsewhere, $449 Category A tickets to the All Blacks v Lions test in Wellington are being advertised for $1409.
Viagogo did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
