Stop taking Viagogo ads, Google told
GOOGLE has been urged to stop doing business with Viagogo amid mounting concerns that customers are losing huge sums of money to the ticket-selling website.
In an open letter, the Football association, MPs and trade body UK Music told the web giant it was ‘untenable’ for it to let Viagogo buy adverts.
They warned the internet firm to take action to ‘protect consumers who daily put their trust in Google’ and ‘restrict Viagogo’s ability to pay for prominence’.
Viagogo hands Google big sums of money to ensure it appears at the top of a list of results when music and sports fans search for tickets.
It is a secondary re-selling marketplace which allows users to ask prices greatly in excess of face value.
However, because it appears above the official ticket agent or promoter – and does not say it is a reselling site in the search results – customers often believe they are buying from an official source – sometimes handing over thousands of pounds for tickets that are invalidated because they have been re-sold.
On other occasions, fans find themselves paying large sums for tickets that are still on sale at a fraction of the price from official sources.
Yesterday, the Mail reported how a woman hoping to take her terminally ill father to the BBC Proms bought two tickets for £2,959 from Viagogo. The tickets never showed up and Viagogo ended up offering replacements, with a face value of £87 each.
The letter to Google, which was signed by 24 lobby groups, sporting bodies and individuals, warned: ‘Viagogo systematically tops Google results for tickets, even when primary inventory is still widely available or, most worryingly, when the tickets listed will be invalid for entry at the event.’
It also quoted Tory MP Damian Collins, chairman of the digital culture, media and sport committee, who has urged music and sports fans to avoid Viagogo after the company pulled out of a Commons hearing at the eleventh hour.
Viagogo said it did not want to ‘jeopardise’ its position after the Competition and Markets authority launched legal proceedings against it. Yesterday Viagogo said: ‘It is legal to resell a ticket and all tickets on Viagogo are genuine.’ a Google spokesman said it would abide by the findings of the CMa.