Viagogo ticket reseller most complained about

WELLINGTON: Ticket reselling platform Viagogo is New Zealand’s most complained about retail company.

From January 2017 to April 30 this year, the Commerce Commission received a total of 345 complaints from consumers about the Swiss company. That number has since risen to around 400.

Documents released under the Official Information Act reveal the majority of complaints about Viagogo were about its advertised ticket pricing which did not include additional fees, GST and currency conversion costs.

A string of other complaints including misleading claims it made that it was an official ticket vendor, for the nondelivery of tickets paid for, the inability of consumers to get a refund, labelling tickets as ‘‘limited’’ or ‘‘about to sell out’’ and not guaranteeing consumers would receive valid tickets to events.

Viagogo has been approached for comment.

Consumer watchdog the Commerce Commission is now suing the company under the Fair Trading Act for breaches of consumer law.

Vodafone attracted 298 consumer complaints to the commission — the secondlargest amount taking into consideration complaints from last year and the first quarter of this year.

Many referred to billing issues and included allegations of account errors and disputed

charges referring to data use charges.

There were complaints about early terminations charges of contracts, late payment fees and the accessibility of contract terms and conditions. Other complaints were for credit management, poor customer service, misleading claims about its ultrafast broadband ‘‘Fibre X’’, recurring faults and network performance.

Vodafone said it was disappointed to be on the Commerce Commission’s list of the most complained about companies.

‘‘Our No 1 business priority is to improve our customer service,’’ a spokeswoman for the telecommunications provider said.

‘‘We really care about our customers and want them to have a great experience, so we take this to heart.

‘‘More than that, we have taken practical steps to move the dial.’’

The spokeswoman said Vodafone had last year appointed Helen van Orton, a customer operations director, to improve its customer service.

‘‘In her first year in the role, changes to our customer experience approach have seen yearonyear complaints drop more than 50%,’’ she said.

Third on the list of the most complained about retail companies is Spark.

The telecommunications provider formerly known as Telecom received 256 complaints, 130 complaints more than Foodstuffs which operates New World and Pak’n Save supermarkets. — NZME