ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Available for over a year

Previous attempts to stop touts buying up tickets for big sporting events and selling them on the secondary market have failed. The organisers of London's IAAF World Athletics Championship held in August hope an official resale website will mean any tickets sold on this time will go to genuine fans. It gives people who won tickets in a computerised ballot the chance to sell them back if they can't go. But how secure was that ballot? And have touts gamed the system by using so-called computer 'bots' to harvest multiple tickets? Sales of wallpaper are, well, going up. One retailer has reported a 45% increase in the last 12 months, with green and textured damask patterns all the rage. Younger people are driving the boom, leaving woodchip and analgypta a distant memory. Nearly two years ago, You & Yours started investigating why some shops at airports were insisting on scanning airline passengers' boarding passes. It became clear that some retailers were charging VAT on the purchases of travellers heading outside the EU - and pocketing the tax, rather than handing it back to the passenger or passing it on to the Chancellor. As the news got around, many travellers refused to hand over their boarding passes - and soon the Government demanded action to make sure retailers weren't making a mint at the passenger's expense. But some listeners have been in touch to say that little has changed - and they're still being asked to scan their boarding pass even to buy a newspaper or a bottle of water.