Reservation services claiming to secure canceled holiday train tickets are becoming more common among users who have been unable to obtain tickets.
At first glance, they appear to be services that find the desired seats on a customer’s behalf, but they can become a system that turns legitimate booking opportunities into something sold for money.
How are ticket scalping and canceled-ticket reservation services different, and what should users watch out for?
3-Line Summary
1. KTX scalping has moved to online transactions
2. A case involving the resale of 4000 tickets was uncovered
3. Canceled-ticket fees can push legitimate bookings aside
The Method of Reselling 4000 Tickets Secured in Advance
According to the National Police Agency, a scalper who used a macro program to secure large quantities of KTX and SRT tickets in advance and then resold approximately 4000 tickets on intermediary platforms over the past 1 year and 7 months was recently caught. This explains why transactions involving sales posts on secondhand-trading platforms and the exchange of mobile tickets are more noticeable than the former practice of handing over tickets for cash near ticket offices.
A macro is a program that automates bookings or searches at speeds that are difficult for a person to repeat manually. If someone uses it to secure tickets first the moment a limited number of seats are released, ordinary users have greater difficulty finding seats on the booking screen. The key point is that the tickets themselves have not disappeared; the opportunity to purchase them has been claimed first.
Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) also operates a “mystery shopper” system in which employees approach sellers on online secondhand-trading platforms as if they were buyers and identify the sellers’ identities. Suspected scalping cases can be reported through KORAIL’s website and the ticket-scalping report section of the KORAIL+ mobile app. KORAIL said it would provide a 50% discount coupon on train fares for reports confirmed to involve actual ticket scalping.
Canceled-Ticket Reservation Services Are Also Difficult to See as Merely a “Convenience”
According to a Kyunghyang Shinmun report, companies are operating services that obtain canceled tickets on behalf of customers and charge a fee when successful. These companies advertised that they charge fees of approximately 1000 won to 3000 won when a reservation succeeds. Although this may appear to be a smaller amount than the ticket price, paying a fee to secure a canceled ticket can effectively become an additional cost for people trying to obtain one.
The Railroad Business Act prohibits anyone other than a railroad business operator or an entrusted sales business operator from habitually or commercially purchasing tickets and the like and selling or arranging their sale at a price higher than the purchase price. Reports have also described cases in which the companies informed customers that they had no legal partnership with KORAIL.
KORAIL explained that, during its own verification, it identified automated access patterns that repeatedly searched for remaining seats at irregular intervals ranging from several seconds to 1 minute. Contrary to the companies’ claims that they do not use macros, KORAIL judged that the activity violated normal reservation procedures and said it was collecting and analyzing related records. KORAIL also said that, once the evidence is secured, it plans to pursue criminal measures, including filing complaints with investigative authorities.
Users Should Look at the Sales Route, Not Just Whether a Ticket Exists
Even when train tickets are urgently needed, secondhand-trading posts or the success fees charged by reservation services cannot replace the normal ticket-purchasing process. In particular, canceled tickets are seats that have reopened because someone canceled. If a system in which such tickets are repeatedly secured first in exchange for fees grows, opportunities will decrease for users who want to book tickets without paying a premium.
The most important point in this case is that scalping does not remain limited to simply reselling tickets at high prices. The practice of securing tickets through automation and then reselling them, and the business of charging compensation while claiming to secure canceled tickets, have the common effect of making it more difficult for users to obtain tickets through official channels.
References
Tags #TicketScalping #KTXScalping #KTXReservations #SRTReservations #TrainTicketScalping #CanceledTickets #CanceledTicketReservations #ReservationServices #Macro #KORAIL #KORAILPlus #TrainTickets