eBay pull the plug on Live 8 tickets

eBay has banned the sale of free Live8 concert tickets which have been put up for auction at £2,000.

More than 200 pairs of tickets appeared for sale on the site after concert organisers notified 75,000 people they had been successful in the text message lottery.

Geldof reacted with fury branding it a “disgrace” and accusing the sellers of “disgusting greed”.

He said: “The people who are selling these tickets on websites are miserable wretches who are capitalising on people’s misery.”

The government had also stepped into the row as Minister for Music James Purnell wrote to eBay asking it to halt the sales, which the site later did.

More than two million pop fans applied for 75,000 pairs of tickets for the July 2 Hyde Park show featuring U2, REM, Madonna, Coldplay and Pink Floyd.

At least a hundred sellers had been touting their tickets on eBay. None of them has yet received tickets, all they have is a text message to say they were successful in the lottery.

Bob Geldof said: “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.”