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The online ticket re-selling platform Viagogo is set to answer accusations in the Federal Court about alleged misleading practices.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Authority (ACCC) is taking action in the Federal Court against the company known as viagogo AG (Viagogo), alleging it breached Australian consumer law when reselling entertainment, music, and live sport tickets from May 1, 2017 to June 26, 2017.
The ACCC said the Swiss-based company uses the 'FOMO' — fear of missing out — approach to ticket sales, creating fear among consumers that they would miss out on events due to limited ticket numbers.
ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard said Viagogo misled consumers by making representations on its website that tickets to certain events were scarce and likely to run out soon, without disclosing that this "scarcity" referred to tickets on its website only.
"Viagogo's statements such as 'less than 1 per cent tickets remaining' created a sense of urgency for people to buy them straight away, when tickets may have still been available through other ticket sources," Ms Rickard said.
In addition, the consumer watchdog is alleging the ticket reseller was also inflating prices.
"We allege that Viagogo failed to disclose significant and unavoidable fees upfront in the ticket price, including a 27.6 per cent booking fee for most events and a handling fee," Ms Rickard said.
She said when the handling and booking fees were added to the price of two Cat Stevens tickets, the ticket price increased by 29 per cent, from $450.00 to $579.95.
Earlier this year a Melbourne teenager was turned away from seeing The Book of Mormon after being sold an invalid ticket through reseller website Viagogo.
Those at a federal level are not the only ones concerned, with recent warnings issued from state governments for consumers not to use Viagogo.
Ms Rickards said the ACCC was hopeful the company would change its online marketing approach, based on successful action taken against the company in Italy.
Those who have fallen victim to Viagogo were also hoping for that change.
Earlier this year the ABC took calls from angry patrons at the 2017 Byron Bay Bluesfest who were left fuming after tickets bought through Viagogo turned out to be fake.
It is something Bluesfest director Peter Noble was not happy about either.
"Viagogo sells tickets without checking the validity of them. Now those tickets are bootlegged, counterfeit, and the public finds out when they get to the gate and it's a horrible experience; it's heartbreaking," Mr Noble said.
Those in the music industry believe search engines such as Google needed to do more to stop Viagogo from cornering the market.
"When you go online to buy a ticket they [Viagogo] are listed first and the official ticket seller is often third or fourth down," Mr Noble said.
Music promoter Harley Medcalf has been trying to raise industry and government interest in the Viagogo issue for more than a year.
"On a massive level in big shows they use robots, [bots as they are known] to secure massive amounts of tickets in a millisecond after they go on sale."
"Within seconds or often before they go on sale they are available on these other sort of criminal, fraudulent sites, it's a global problem," Mr Medcalf said.
Bluesfest's Mr Noble had this advice.
"I know that buying through secondary sellers, such as Viagogo, has ended in misery for a lot of people. So buyer beware."
Topics: consumer-protection, arts-and-entertainment, lismore-2480, canberra-2600
First posted