Viagogo ticketing scam rips off fans
SCAMMERS have left Norah Jones fans out of pocket and ticketless after seats for her Dunedin show were sold multiple times through a controversial reselling website.
Promoters have cancelled 24 tickets to the American artist’s April show at the Regent Theatre which were being resold in violation of the terms and conditions.
The tickets were being sold through the Switzerlandbased website Viagogo, which is being sued by the Commerce Commission for allegedly breaching the Fair Trading Act.
A Frontier Touring spokeswoman said the company, along with the Regent Theatre, had taken action against scalping on Jones’ show and cancelled 24 tickets which were now available again through TicketDirect.
Frontier Touring owner Michael Gudinski said promoters, artists and venues were frustrated their tickets continued to be sold through the website.
Both Australia and New Zealand needed to follow the United Kingdom’s lead and force the website to give customers more information about what they were buying, Mr Gudinski said.
Google also needed stop accepting advertising money from the company which almost always appeared at the top of searches for concerts, he said.
He applauded the proactive approach taken by the theatre and ticket company and said it needed to be done across the board so noone else got ‘‘ripped off’’ when trying to buy concert tickets.
He also warned those who still had not bought tickets to the Eagles concert in Dunedin next month to avoid Viagogo or any other reseller.
‘‘We’re over 30,000 already and it’s going to be a great show but people need to know there are still tickets for the Eagles left and they shouldn’t be going to any of these sites.’’
Regent Theatre director Sarah Anderson called the website ‘‘Vianogo’’ and said people should avoid using it.
Theatre staff noticed tickets to Jones’ show were being bought by people based in countries where there had previously been problems with Viagogo and contacted the ticketing agents and promoters, Ms Anderson said.
Anyone who had purchased tickets to the show through the website and worried about the validity of their seats needed to contact Viagogo, she said.
Viagogo did not respond to emailed questions yesterday.