The PyeongChang Organizing Committee said it would crack down on the pervasive reselling of PyeongChang Winter Olympic tickets both online and offline.

“We cannot track down transactions made only once or twice by a single person. We are planning on catching those who have transferred tickets at least four to five times for profit,” an organizing committee member said.

Although the organizing committee has not yet taken action against scalpers, it is closely monitoring ticket brokering on community websites such as Joonggo Nara and requesting that site operators delete illegal posts.

Joonggo Nara is a large site where people sell and buy secondhand goods on the Korean online platform Naver. Hundreds of posts selling Olympic tickets are put up every day. 

Resale posts for profit include specific sporting events and closing ceremony tickets. With few tickets sold lower than face value, resale tickets are often sold with $50-100 added to the original price.

It is not too difficult to spot resale tickets that cost twice or even three times the original price for more popular sports. For figure skating, the price for first-level seats have been listed up from a face value of 550,000 won ($510) to 1.5 million won.

However, reselling tickets with extra fees violates the terms and conditions of ticket purchase established by the PyeongChang Organizing Committee. The policy says, “Tickets may not be purchased or obtained from any sources other than from Authorized Ticket Sources.” Tickets purchased from other sources may be “declared void and seized or canceled.”

It is the ticket brokers the organizing committee says it is mostly concerned about rather than individuals reselling a couple of tickets because they could not make it to the sporting events for personal reasons. The PyeongChang Organizing Committee has opened a fan-to-fan website for people who want to resell their tickets at the face value.

By Ahn Sang-yool (koolsangon@heraldcorp.com)