TRENTON, N.J. -- An Internet auction site agreed to shut down illegal ticket scalping for Sunday's NFL playoff game between the Eagles and Giants.
Mark Herr, director of the state's Division of Consumer Affairs, said eBay and the state reached an agreement late Friday afternoon.
In it, the Web auctioneer agreed to end auctions in which ticket prices exceeded the price allowed by state law, promised to send warning letters to alleged violators and send copies of transactions to the state for possible prosecution.
The state will share eBay records with the Giants organization, which might suspend season ticket privileges for ticket holders who scalp, Herr said.
Herr said the Web company has cooperated in the past with the state government.
Herr said there's danger in buying tickets online. "You have no idea who you're dealing with," he said. "You have no idea if the tickets are real."
The eBay crackdown was a blow to fans willing to pay big bucks to see the regional rivals collide Sunday.
Getting tickets has been particularly difficult for Eagles faithful, who are within about a 100-mile drive on the New Jersey Turnpike from Giants Stadium. Last week, the Giants sold 5,000 tickets through Ticketmaster -- but only at outlets in Trenton and points north. That shut out plenty of fans from the Philadelphia area.
New Jersey law prohibits selling tickets for more than $3 or 20 percent above the face value, whichever is greater.
Face value of the playoff tickets is $72 and $77. That means the highest prices for which they can legally be sold are $86.40 or $92.40, depending on the seats.
Tickets were routinely being sold Friday for more than twice their face value.
Despite eBay's policing of its auctions, scalpers have found a few ways to attempt to skirt the laws -- and it seems some big offers are getting through.
One seller Saturday was offering free tickets with the purchase of Giants Super Bowl memorabilia from 1986 and 1991. By Saturday afternoon, that offer had fetched a bid of $200.
One set of four tickets Saturday afternoon was bid up to $430.
Penalties for scalpers can include fines of up to $7,500 for a first offense and $15,000 per violation after that. Herr said the state attempted to prosecute about a dozen alleged scalpers last year.
Herr said New Jersey's scalping law has not been enforced against ticket buyers.
EBay requires ticket sellers to list the face value of their seats and a summary of New Jersey's anti-scalping law.
Kevin Pursglove, a spokesman for the San Jose, Calif.-based online giant, told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Saturday's editions that the ticket-sales policy was adopted in 1999 in response to complaints about World Series ticket scalping.
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