It's becoming a fierce competition for people trying to buy tickets online for Spring Festival in February, during which billions of train journeys are taken every year. （Photo/Chinanews.com)
(ECNS) -- As China's national train ticketing website 12306.cn tightens up security to battle scalpers, the latter have started charging customers "service fees" when buying tickets.
Purchasing train tickets in the Spring Festival rush can be a tough task. Ticket selling has already kicked off for the 2016 Chinese lunar New Year holiday, which will fall between February 7 and 13.
A man surnamed Qiao said he waited in front of his computer for hours before the gate opened to grab a ticket but failed. He decided to turn to ticket scalpers who are better at grabbing tickets with special computer tools and techniques.
To avoid scalpers snapping up quantities of tickets and reselling them at inflated prices, 12306.cn started to use two-factor authentication and complex verification codes. Now, scalpers find it harder and harder to profit.
"Instead, we help customers go through verification, update pages to get the latest ticket information and help them grab tickets," one scalper said. "And we make a commission."
Such "commission" ranges from 80 to 150 yuan ($12.5-23).
