Website pulls Live8 tickets auction

AN online auction site was last night forced to take down sales of Live 8 tickets from its website.

More than 100 pairs of tickets won in the text lottery were being advertised on the internet auction site and attracted bids of thousands of pounds.

Bob Geldof branded it a "disgrace" and accused the sellers of "disgusting greed", threatening to launch a British high court action against them.

He called for a worldwide boycott of eBay describing the site as an "electronic pimp" although eBay was not breaking the law.

Managing director Doug McCallum said that managers had listened to eBay customers' "overwhelming" view that they should end the sales.

Mr McCallum added he did not think its actions in allowing the sales were either "right or wrong".

He said: "The bottom line is that we've listened carefully to our customers over the last few days.

"Overwhelmingly the voice is that they would like us to take down the listing so we are going to do our best to do that."

Asked if there was any chance of clawing the money back from deals that had already gone through he said: "We of course only benefit by a very small amount of money from the total proportion of sales. We've already offered to donate that money to the Live 8 concert organisers and have done that quite a lot earlier so we certainly aren't profiteering or in any way profiting from these sales."

The ticket line for the July 2 concert in London's Hyde Park attracted more than two million text messages. An audience of 150,000 will get to watch the show, which will feature the likes of Paul McCartney, Madonna, Coldplay and Pink Floyd.

A spokesman for Live 8 said: "We're delighted; at last they have seen sense."

Mr Geldof said: "It was a sort of example of corporate arrogance that it thought it could operate outside the morality of its audience.

"I am glad it's stopped and well done for taking them down but it was despicable and they should have thought about it before they did this.

He added: "They miscalculated this country very badly and, magnificently, the country won."

Ewan Hunter, chief executive of the Hunter Foundation, which is helping Mr Geldof organise the Scottish leg of the event said: "This is fantastic news and very morally responsible."