After Paul Rinaldi bought season tickets for the 2007 football season, he offered them for free online with the purchase of a pen -- his way of avoiding state scalping laws.
But students like Rinaldi (sophomore-division of undergraduate studies) are now in luck. A law signed by Gov. Ed Rendell Friday has removed price restrictions on the resale of tickets through the Internet.
Previously, tickets could not legally be resold through Web sites such as Ticketmaster, StubHub or eBay for more than 25 percent or $5 more than face value, whichever is greater, said Fran Cleaver, counsel and director of the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensuring Committee in the Pennsylvania Senate.
Effective immediately, the new law removes all price restrictions for online sales; however, it requires that ticket resellers must maintain a physical presence in Pennsylvania and guarantee a full refund if the event is cancelled, if the ticket is counterfeit or does not match its description.
Ticket resellers in Pennsylvania must identify themselves and provide consumer remedies, Cleaver said.
"This will bring legitimacy to ticket resellers because it will force them to be accountable to Pennsylvania law," she said.
With football tickets selling out this year in a record 59 minutes, students have been posting classified ads for season tickets on the Web site www.lionconnection.com for as much as $750, while on eBay they have been listed from $700 to more than $1,000.
"A lot of my friends ended up not getting tickets, so I'm not really going to go to the games without them," Rinaldi said, "so I'd rather sell my tickets and get the money."
Rinaldi's pen, free season tickets included, eventually sold for $1,225 -- $1,035 more than the initial selling price of a set of student season tickets.
"I personally wouldn't [pay that much], but I know there are people out there who are really hardcore fans and need tickets," he said.
Although the new law removes price restrictions on the resale of tickets through the Internet, scalping a ticket in person is still illegal. Joseph Puzycki, director of Judicial Affairs, said his office handles between 50 and 100 scalping incidents each year.
"We see a fair amount at the beginning of the year, especially when there's a real need for tickets," he said.
Unfortunately, there is no way to control students reselling their tickets, said Greg Myford, associate athletic director of marketing and communications.
"The fact that there were postings to Web sites 15 minutes after the sale at exorbitant rates flies in the face of what the sale is about," he said.
Myford said the athletic office has been in contact with the university and state police regarding scalping and has received suggestions from students on how to deal with scalpers. The suggestion range from arresting violators to simply not buying tickets from scalpers.
"We're looking at how we can police [scalping] and, more importantly, act on it," he said.
Puzycki said Judicial Affairs considers sanctions on a case-by-case basis. There's a big difference between someone reselling their tickets to a friend and someone running a scalping business, he said.
"When we're looking at a first-time scalping violation, it could be university probation ... or the student could lose the privilege to buy tickets again," he said. Puzycki said university probation lasts no less than a semester, but depends on the individual nature of the case.
Some students said they did not agree with selling tickets at high prices.
"I'm personally against the outrageous ticket prices, but there's really no way to stop it," said Chase Tralka (freshman-aerospace engineering).
Tralka said he received offers up to $2,000 for his tickets.
"It just blew me away that people were willing to pay so much money for something I paid $190 for," he said.
Tralka said he sold his tickets to a friend for $190.
"I don't really think it's right to rip people off for something I didn't pay that much for," he said.
