Fair enough, just out of interest if an away game dropped to all members & you had no chance of making the game, would you buy it knowing you could easily sell it on & gain the credit - to help you get on the away ladder?
This discussion only proceeds and works if we are totally honest, so I would say yes (although I'm struggling to find a reason why I couldn't make the game). Based on the likely presumption that people with credits are already credit hunting at times themselves and that there is no guarantee that if I leave the ticket for someone else, they don't also credit hunt it - then my only chance of getting on the ladder and climbing is to play the system the same way as everyone else.
In general I have no issue with credit hunting. Well actually obviously I do, but as the system is set up to promote that as a strategy for people it sort of comes with the territory and I accept it as a reality- from a position of relative weakness (I have only 1 FA Cup away credit and no other away credits). But perhaps that's because I tend to get sorted fairly often, albeit it is a lot more difficult this season, would I be more bothered if I didn't know people, who had spares to sell? We all know that lots of away tickets in the cups, league games and FA cup games are credit hunted and a lot are sold on here - there hasn't been European exchanges for a long while though - I think there might have been some 8+ years ago. Quite a few must know before they purchase that they cannot attend, but buy and sell them on anyway. The sort of unwritten trade off on here is that most people know that they won't get the credit, but they will be able to attend an away game and watch the reds play. I think that's accepted on here, as we could really do away with exchanges for away games to be honest. Though there obviously will be a few legitimate spares for various reasons so the exchange does serve a purpose, demand being higher than supply also makes it easy for non legitimate spares to be moved on.
My problem isn't so much with the people working the system, it is with the system itself. It's a change in the system I want. If there was a way for people who physically attend the games to get the credits, I don't think anyone would seriously have an issue with that, it's just I can't think of a cost effective way to do it.
The club don't want to receive 600 away ticket stubs back with membership numbers to assign the credit to - and even then, you'd imagine the person that sold the ticket initially, wouldn't be willing to provide you with any other spares down the line as you had 'stolen' their credit - they'd move onto selling to people who promise to not claim the credit- so I can't actually think of a way in which we can have the credits go to the right people albeit that would be the most ideal way of solving that particular issue.
People buying and selling tickets at face value to genuine and passionate fans to credit hunt should be looked at but it is probably a lower priority than those who are purchasing them and selling on at ridiculous prices- this is a much bigger issue for me. And even if there is say 100 tickets out of 3000 being touted for an away, that's still 3.3% which is a fairly large percentage considering it's a conservative estimate.
Edit: For what it's worth, the most recent away game that dropped to all members was West Ham away, I bought a ticket and I went.
