DESPECABLE
Probe call over festival scalpers TRNSMT boss hits out at ‘spec selling’ ticket scam where tout website offers wildly over-priced briefs that don’t exist
TRNSMT boss Geoff Ellis has called for a probe into a huge “spec selling” scam uncovered by the Record – with hundreds of nonexistent tickets for the event being offered for sale.
The supremo of DF Concerts, which is staging the massive event in Glasgow next month, has confirmed that more than 1000 tickets listed on tout site Viagogo for TRNSMT by mystery traders were never purchased.
Sites such as Ticketmaster, See Tickets, Festicket and Ticket Scotland are still selling face value briefs for the festival, which features Liam Gallagher, The Chemical Brothers and Snow Patrol.
But the Record found 1129 tickets listed on Viagogo by shady touts, with the briefs part of a global “spec selling” con.
They had a total face value of £140,510 – but an asking price of £579,607. “Spec selling” involves individuals attempting to trade tickets that have not been bought yet – and is a criminal offence under the Fraud Act.
The Record told yesterday how the Viagogo website has up to £4million of suspicious listings, with untraceable traders and false addresses. We discovered a huge amount of spec selling of briefs for TRNSMT, prompting festival boss Ellis to condemn the scam. He said: “The information that you have brought to light is disgraceful, appears very sinister and must be investigated by the authorities with appropriate action taken. “As popular as TRNSMT is, isn’t yet sold out and it’s obvious that tickets are not actually being sold at these ridiculous amounts, nor would any touts on Viagogo actually have these quantities of tickets.” Our latest revelations come a day after we told how one suspicious sales entity, HE Events, was listing tickets from a terraced bungalow in Dundee. The home owners confirmed that the address was being used without their knowledge. When we checked out Viagogo’s listings for the three-day TRNSMT festival, which kicks off on Friday, September 10, we found one seller, “Sofia Wagner” of Munich, Germany, holding most of the TRNSMT supply.
The supposed supertout appeared to have spent £109,412.50 on more than 700 tickets for the eagerly-awaited Glasgow extravaganza.
Her asking price was £485,400 – but we understand none of the tickets had been purchased.
When efforts were made to track down Wagner at the address given on Viagogo – in the German city’s AlbertRoßhaupter-Straße – no one knew her at that address.
Campaigners claim more than 80 per cent of the total tickets listed on Viagogo for TRNSMT do not exist and are not intended to sell – but are there distort the level of trade going on at the site.
Our revelations were published on the same day the UK’s business watchdog, the
Competition and Markets Authority, released a raft of recommendations to clean up ticketing.
Its actions were welcomed by Adam Webb, of pressure group FanFair Alliance.
He said: “Our analysis of the TRNSMT festival makes it crystal clear that something is very badly amiss. The Sofia Wagner tickets were priced in a way that they would not sell but their existence skewed the market.
“Over the course of the pandemic, FanFair Alliance has continued to send substantial evidence to the CMA detailing a range of serious and current allegations about Viagogo in particular – from systematic breaches of consumer protection law to mass-scale fraud. This has gone on for far too long.
“The CMA still has a court order hanging over this company.”
Viagogo said an investigation took place after the Record’s claims were put to them, resulting in sellers being blocked.