Thousands of Jerry Seinfeld fans have been left angry and disappointed after tickets for the comedian’s 2017 Australian tour sold out in minutes, only to appear on resale sites for inflated prices.

Websites like Gumtree, Ticketmaster Resale and Ticketblaster listed tickets for Seinfeld’s much-anticipated return to Australia for five times more than the original premium ticket price.

On Sunday, two tickets for Seinfeld’s August 4 show in Perth were listed for the inflated price of $2300.

Sydney tix on sale for 30 mins and already 50 available on @Ticketmaster_AU Resale. But Oz govt insists scalping 'not a problem'. #seinfeld pic.twitter.com/HFYqvlcZqN — Mike Tuckerman (@Mike_Tuckerman) November 8, 2016

One disappointed customer initiated a Change.org petition calling for Ticketek to introduce named tickets – preventing the ease of resales.

A number of users complained that Telstra customers were selling their special pre-sale offer tickets for inflated prices before the bulk of tickets had even gone on sale.

The same problem occurred when Coldplay tickets were made available early to Telstra customers earlier in 2016.

Fans lash out at Ticketek, Ticketmaster Resale

When tickets for Seinfeld’s first Australian tour since 1998 went on sale last week, buyers were able to purchase up to eight seats per person.

It didn’t take long for disappointed consumers to accused Ticketek of allowing scalpers and “scalp-bots” to snap up tickets.

Scalp-bots are autonomous programs that are wired to automatically purchase tickets and post them on resale sites.

Last week, Ticketek told Fairfax the company had sunk “considerable technical effort and funds in defences against Bots”.

But angry Seinfeld fans accused Ticketek of failing to prevent widespread scalping in comments left on the company’s Facebook page .

“Disappointed. Honest fans miss out while scammers profit,” wrote one user.

“Ticketek has a vastly inadequate system in place, that favour scalpers, corporate buyers and media celebrities,” posted another.

Fans also accused the site of deleting their comments, with a number threatening to lodge complaints with the consumer watchdog.

Meanwhile, Ticketek’s biggest competitor Ticketmaster was selling tickets for some of the highest markups on Ticketmaster Resale site.

According to The Guardian, Ticketmaster Resale makes 25 per cent of a ticket’s price per sale, thus pocketing $250 for simply facilitating the sale of a $1000 ticket.

Legalities of scalping in Australia

Ticketek’s website specifically bans the online resale of tickets in its terms and conditions.

“Tickets may not, without the prior written consent of Ticketek and the Seller, be resold or offered for resale at a premium (including via on-line auction or other unauthorised resale sites),” it reads.

Those lines were quoted by a number of fed-up users who accused Ticketek of allowing bots to swallow up much of the ticket allocation, despite the company not having an apparent financial incentive to do so.

In 2014, Senator Nick Xenophon pushed for more powerful national anti-scalping laws But a Senate inquiry found that generic consumer law in Australia was sufficient protection against illegal scalping.

Senator Xenophon also pushed for a cap on the price tickets can be resold for, while the ticket industry argued that caps on the number of possible tickets per transaction was enough to prevent widespread scalping.

Ticketmaster told the committee that without pre-sale offers with sponsors such as Telstra, many shows could not happen.