Purchasing tickets online

CMA and Viagogo

Viagogo has made headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent years with reports of hugely inflated tickets being made available via their website. Reports of tickets to see Michelle Obama selling at three times their face value and even selling tickets that they did not possess for concerts by the likes of  Ed Sheeran. Real concern over the operation of Viagogo reached a peak in the summer of 2018 when an investigation by ITV found that Viagogo had sent out teams to purchase tickets from ticket holders attending Ed Sheeran concerts at Wembley with the aim of then passing these onto Viagogo’s customers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) clearly decided that enough was enough and decided to take on Viagogo and continues to battle with the secondary ticketing site.

In November 2018, the CMA obtained a court order for breaches of consumer protection law. The breaches included “pressure selling”, failing to tell customers that they may be turned away at the venue, providing inadequate seat information, not revealing the seller’s identity, repeatedly failing to make customers aware of the face value of tickets and making it difficult for customers to get their money back under the website’s guarantee.

The court order was made after Viagogo agreed to address all of the CMA’s concerns without the need for a trial. To comply with the court order and consumer protection laws, Viagogo were ordered to  revamp its business practices. In particular, the order set out that Viagogo must:

• Not provide misleading information about the availability and popularity of tickets, which could lead to customers being rushed into making a buying decision or making the wrong choice.
• Ensure that customers are aware of the face value of tickets for sale through its site.
• Provide information about who is selling the ticket, so people can benefit from enhanced legal rights when buying from a business, and preventing the sale of tickets a seller does not own and may not be able to supply.
• Inform customers if there is a risk they will be refused entry at the door and which seat they will get.
• Make it easy for people to get their money back under Viagogo’s guarantee if something goes wrong.

Although the Order was made in November 2018, Viagogo had until 17^th January to comply. The CMA has announced that it will be seeking an order for contempt of court against Viagogo for failure to comply fully with the original court order. This could mean punishment by way of fines or imprisonment for directors of Viagogo if this latest move is successful.

The CMA has continued to raise concerns that Viagogo had not overhauled its website to comply with the terms of the court order. After considering an independent review of Viagogo’s compliance, the CMA has accepted that Viagogo has made positive changes to address its breaches of consumer protection law, resulting in improvements to the information received by customers when buying tickets. Viagogo has also refunded over £400,000 to irate consumers. However, the CMA believes that Viagogo has not gone far enough to change its business practices, hence its decision to move forward with the contempt proceedings. In particular, the CMA considers that:

• The warning given to purchasers of tickets that tickets with resale restrictions may not allow them entry to an event does not comply with the order.
• Viagogo is continuing to use misleading ticket availability messages, such as displaying inaccurate claims about the number of tickets left on the site.
• Some seat numbers are not being displayed on the website as required by the order.
• There have been instances of incomplete addresses of businesses selling tickets being displayed to consumers.

The CMA has also instituted separate proceedings against Viagogo  in respect of a particular part of the order concerning the use of “hover text” to display the face value of tickets and the deadlines for people to claim for refunds. The CMA reports that a hearing took place on 18 June 2019 and the parties are awaiting the judge’s decision.

If you have any further questions on this, please do not hesitate to contact Stephen Foote.