Are ticketers flouting the law?

Ticket retailers may be breaching the Fair Trading Act by not disclosing all their fees upfront, one lawyer says.

Fairfax NZ is investigating retailers who use ‘‘drip pricing’’ – adding on unavoidable charges to their advertised price, once people have opted to buy a product.

One father complained he had been charged more than $10 in additional fees when trying to buy tickets for Panic! At the Disco, at Vector Arena, from Ticketmaster.

Hamish McNaughton said it was ‘‘manipulative, bait-and-switch-type behaviour.’’

The advertised price for the tickets his daughter wanted was $89. But then he was charged $2.05 in payment processing fees, $2.75 for a ‘‘land levy’’ and $8 for an order processing fee.

‘‘It’s annoying in many ways, one being that I am now in the position of having to decide whether to go back to my daughter and say, ‘ Actually that ticket will cost almost $102,’ or to quietly swallow $12.80 of the cost myself,’’ McNaughton said.

‘‘The extra $12.80 in fees mean the real cost was over 14 per cent higher that the price visible in large text on the first screen.’’

He said it was frustrating that all the ticket sellers employed similar tactics.

‘‘If I want to buy tickets to a concert, I have to swallow it. If they wanted to, they could roll it into one and have it as part of the ticket price.’’

A Ticketmaster defended the charges.

‘‘The fees paid cover the cost of providing a wide range of services to the clients that we sell tickets for and the customers who purchase tickets.’’

Ticketmaster said the payment processing fee of up to 2.3 per cent applied to credit card, debit card and gift card purchase. The transaction fee covered the cost of operating an internet site and processing the tickets. The land levy was charged by Vector Arena.

‘‘Fees are added separately to make it as transparent as possible.’’

But lawyer Michael Wigley said it was likely to be a breach of the Fair Trading Act. ‘‘You’re basically misled into the site based on the lower price.’’ spokesperson

He said the retailers would continue with the tactic until they were forced to stop, because it made them more money.

The Commerce Commission said it had no current investigations into Ticketmaster.

Its main rival, Ticketek, also charges add-on fees.

Consumer NZ is running a campaign asking people to report any instances of ‘‘drip pricing’’ such as this, when charges are added after a headline amount is advertised.

‘‘You may not discover these add-ons until you’ve trawled through the fine print or come to the end of the booking process,’’ Consumer NZ said.

‘‘Overseas, regulators have cracked down on drip pricing. In Europe, traders have to disclose upfront the total cost of a product as well as any extra fees.

‘‘In Australia, it’s illegal for companies to display a component of a price without prominently showing the total amount the consumer has to pay.

‘‘We think it’s time companies here were upfront about the add-ons.’’