THE BBC has gone to war with ticket touts while warning that fans buying resold briefs for a major music festival in Glasgow at up to 30 times their face value will be barred.

Tickets for synth-pop band Depeche Mode, headliners of the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival, slated to play at the 2,100-capacity Glasgow Barrowlands were sold out in minutes on Friday morning, with £30 briefs immediately available on the Viagogo ticketing resale site and selling for up to £879 each.

That's despite the BBC warning that tickets resold for profit or commercial gain by anyone other than nominated ticket agent, the Ticketmaster-owned Ticketweb, will become void.

The BBC has confirmed that it has approached Switzerland-based Viagogo about the promotion and resale of tickets on their site which the public corporation has said should not be resold.

The BBC has warned fans with resold tickets that they will not be allowed in, which means they stand to be massively out of pocket.

The chaos has led to the BBC being bombarded with complaints, with fans saying that the corporation had allowed them to be exploited through their handling of ticket sales, with one fan describing it as "the real rock 'n' roll swindle".

To guard against tickets touts reselling for profit, 6 Music Festival tickets have been printed with the name of the lead purchaser who will have to show ID at the venue to gain entry. And the BBC said that all fans going to the festival will need ID matching the lead booker's name on the ticket. Without that, fans will be refused entry.

Officials have warned that there will be security at all venues to monitor for ticket touts.

Other major ticket resale sites like Ticketmaster's Get Me In!, eBay company Stubhub and Seatwave - among those which have come under fire in the past as forums for touts selling tickets for massive profits - did not appear to be hosting the BBC festival tickets.

Ticketmaster confirmed it had put a block on the resale of tickets on its secondary sites, because of the BBC restrictions.

A BBC source said: "Viagogo is not a partner and we strongly recommend the public do not buy tickets being resold, as the purchaser cannot guarantee they are genuine and not copies, and without the ID of the lead purchaser they will not gain entry to the festival."

The source warned that offering tickets for resale was breaking the terms and conditions buyers agreed to during the booking process.

And she insisted that the venues will be policed to ensure that people who have resold tickets will not gain entry.

Asked if Viagogo has been approached about the promotion and resale of tickets, the BBC source said: "Yes, and to reiterate, resold tickets will be void.

But Viagogo, which has remained silent about the criticism, was continuing to resell tickets yesterday.

Music fans became enraged after spotting the sales and have complained that the festival has become a target for profiteering touts.

Jim Cassidy, 47, from Airdrie, who lost out on buying tickets said he was shocked at seeing tickets being resold on Viagogo and believed that genuine fans would once again suffer in the BBC's war against the touts.

"The fan gets shafted every way," he said. "He doesn't get the ticket in the first place, then he get done over when he buys at inflated prices from a secondary place and then when he turns up at the venue, because he has not bought it from the original seller, he gets turned away at the door.

"This is the real rock'n'roll swindle. It's horrendous."

Another music fan, Brian Bell, added: "I don't mind losing out on tickets if they are going to genuine fans, but the way this half-a*sed arrangement played into the hands of the touts just sticks in my throat."

The ticketing website takes a 12 per cent cut from the seller, then adds around 15 per cent of the full sale price plus VAT as a service fee. For a resold £879 Depeche Mode ticket the seller would make £770, Viagogo would take £405 including VAT and the buyer would pay around £1,175 in total. The seller of these tickets is not known, as Viagogo protects their identities.

Depeche Mode tickets have been the most sought after of the Glasgow shows, as the band normally play to arenas and stadia at least five times the size of the Barrowlands. It would be their first live UK show for four years.

The BBC music festival, which is being staged in venues across Glasgow, also features The Jesus and Mary Chain, Sparks, Goldfrapp and Belle & Sebastian.

StubHub and Ticketmaster have been accused of acting like “old-fashioned fences” as MPs investigated websites that allow touts to make huge profits from illegal ticket sales.

In November, key figures from StubHub and Ticketmaster faced an inquisition from MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee, who have been looking into allegations that touts use underhand methods to secure tickets at the expense of fans.

During the sessions Ticketmaster was accused of profiteering by potentially pocketing more than £600 on tickets sold by touts for Phil Collins concerts.

Seats for the tour sold out on Ticketmaster in seconds in October with many believed to have been booked by touts who sell them on for inflated prices.

Ticketmaster's website redirected fans to a reselling site it owns called Get Me In! where the seats – originally priced from £55 to £175 – sell for up to £2,200.

A TicketWeb spokesperson said: “We worked in conjunction with the BBC to make sure that tickets got into the hands of true fans.

“The measures that we have put in place will ensure that it is these fans who get into the festival.”