It's more difficult than it should be to be a match-going United supporter. Stupid criteria, stupid systems, shit website, shit comms to boot... and this fecking test they've implemented doesn't even work properly. I've worked in Software delivery for a long time and have never seen something as mindless as this. Maybe it's was their solution to ensure engagement, but at least test in-house that it functions properly FFS.
I don't know how much time you've spent on the phone with 'the club' but it's almost always a painful endeavor.
But anyway, regarding the bolded, I don't know if you're misinformed or just not aware, but this 100% isn't being implemented for 'security' or to 'stop touting' nor does it do either of those things. United are the biggest touts of the lot, selling single tickets to individual games for £400 a pop and offering a 'hospitality service', i.e. you get a pint in a warehouse before sitting in some otherwise undesirable tier 3 seats.
The whole reason they've made it locked to a single device is to increase match-day revenue. Nothing they've done stops touting, it just adds on a £20 'transaction fee' per tout sale which goes to the club in the form of a throwaway membership locked to the buyer's device. To use a local parallel, Taxis at Manchester Airport increasing fares to cover the £5 Manchester Airport exit costs. (Also cnuts... the Airport that is)
As a real world example, here's my use-case: 2x Season Tickets in the highest non-hospitality band. (c. £3k p/a with home cup games). I attend 90% of games with either my wife, mum or sister, work/life. Occasionally my parents will go together, or one of my parents will go with my wife or sister.
To me, that's not touting... just using tickets within my immediate family. The new system means that the £3k I spend on home games will now be closer to £3.1k once we've bought the extra memberships required to enter the stadium. Tell me they're not taking the piss?
Finally, on the app itself. If United were a customer-first organization, the app would've been introduced with as little friction as possible. Instead, what happened...
- App forced onto users following a self-fulfilling trial
- Mandatory calls to action (which are broken, ffs) with punishment for failure to complete
- Device locked
But unfortunately, United
are absolutely not a customer/fan-first organisation. They're commercial performance first, marketing/PR second, fans/customers third and sporting performance fourth.
If they had a collective brain, they would've implemented the app with a fair-usage policy, like Amazon or Netflix have done in the past. If your membership is being logged into on 10+ devices across the season for entering the stadium, there's a high chance the ST holder is touting. Warn them and then if it continues, ban them. But if it's being used across 2-3 devices, there's probably nothing to worry about it.