Viagogo loses battle against commission
The Commerce Commission has won an eight year legal battle against ticket reseller, Viagogo, forcing them to change their terms and conditions.
The Commerce Commission and ticket resale website Viagogo had gone through a month-long civil trial in the High Court at Auckland.
In 2017, Kiwi concert-goers started making complaints about Switzerlandbased Viagogo to the commission.
In a recently released decision, the court ruled that Viagogo had misleading information on its website and that it needed to update its terms and conditions to allow for customer disputes to be dealt with by New Zealand courts.
Previously, the company stated that any dispute had to be dealt with through the Swiss courts.
Commerce Commission Fair Trading General Manager Vanessa Horne said Viagogo was one of the commission’s most complained about traders – with Kiwis buying tickets that were not valid.
The complaints in mid-2017 centred not only around the claim that Viagogo’s headline prices for tickets were wrong, as hefty fees were added to their purchases, but they protested that Viagogo claimed they were “guaranteed” to receive valid tickets for events.
“The Commission is aware of a large number of reports from consumers who had purchased event tickets from Viagogo, booked flights and travel to attend the event, only to be turned away at the entrance when they found out for the first time that their tickets weren't authentic,” Horne said.
These incidents resulted in significant distress and financial impacts, Horne said.
Horne said the case was an example of how consumer protection agencies can hold global businesses to account.
“This case was about holding a global business to account for the harm they were causing in New Zealand and paving the way for individuals to have the ability to stand up for their consumer rights against international companies,” Horne said.” Viagogo was appealing the judgment.
Simone Mohr in 2017 paid $3000, including a booking fees of $448, for four tickets on the Viagogo website to an Australian concert being held by her daughters’ idol Adele.
There were no tickets.
When she and her daughters turned up at the stadium, it turned out they had been sold tickets which had been refunded.