THE government has taken the first step to determine if there is any need for a law to deal with ticket touts.

Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Salahuddin Ayub and Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil in a joint press conference today said their respective ministries were studying various aspects before mooting the law.

Fahmi said they both will also be reaching to other ministries to ascertain if a law is needed to prevent “scalping” by ticket touts in future events or concerts.

Last week, he was critical of the sale of the British band Coldplay’s concert tickets, which were priced at RM1,288, being resold for RM43,200.

Fahmi, however, said his ministry has not found elements of exploitation by ticket touts in the Coldplay concert scheduled for November so far.

He said he and representatives from the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry yesterday met with the concert organiser in parliament, and were informed that the organisers logged 700,000 hits to purchase tickets online.

He said payments of the 71,000 tickets sold to date were made from 26,000 different credit cards and the organiser and the authorities were unable to ascertain whether any elements of fraud are involved in the transactions. – May 23, 2023.