HOW I WAS CONNED OUT OF £400 IN SECONDS

WHAT kind of idiot would shell out nearly £400 for a pair of third- tier tickets for a concert at Wembley Stadium in June, purchased in haste from a website that turns out to be the world’s biggest rip-off?

The devoted Dad of a teenage Taylor Swift fan, that’s who.

I know because that’s me. My daughter is mad keen on the blonde U.S. pop singer and has been for years.

She has Taylor Swift pictures on her wall, Taylor Swift sheets on her bed and buys every album the moment it’s released.

So, as a dedicated ‘Swiftie’ (as fans are known), she desperately wanted tickets for the singer’s UK tour this summer.

And, as her dad, I wasn’t going to deny her. Any father of a daughter will tell you this: we love our girls so much that nothing is too good for them.

That’s why, as soon as I got the call — she was at school in between classes — telling me ‘Taylor Swift tickets go on sale today!’ I was on my computer, looking for the best deals.

The name at the top of the Google search was Viagogo. And, as it was at the top, I assumed it was the official vendor.

Tickets, I knew, would be in short supply. Swift is one of the world’s biggest pop stars and is only playing two London dates, which I’ve no doubt she could sell out many times over.

That’s why I was so keen to get in early — and why I panicked when flashing messages on the Viagogo site warned me that hundreds of other customers were online right now, trying to snap up the same tickets as me.

Further frantic messages told me these were the ‘last available tickets’ and if I didn’t process my order in the short time allowed by the visibly ticking countdown clock, then I wouldn’t get them.

With hindsight, it’s obvious these were high-pressure sales techniques cynically designed to extract outrageous sums of money from a captive and vulnerable audience.

But at the time, you’re so rushed, you can’t think straight.

Had the tickets been for me, I would definitely have pulled out of the process earlier — especially at the stage, near the end, where the price suddenly jumps another 30 pc, supposedly to include ‘handling, VAT and booking’.

As it was for my girl, though — and I bet many Viagogo victims are in this boat — I paid up. Three months on, I still haven’t seen my tickets — Viagogo only promises to deliver ‘no later than three days before the event’.

If they ever arrive, their face value will be a tiny fraction of the £180 I paid for each of them.

It was the Mail’s expose that alerted me to the scheme.

Up until then, I just thought: ‘Well, I guess this is the way things are when you buy pop concert tickets these days.’

Now, I realise someone might bring these rogues to justice and stop it happening in future.

But I can’t escape the fact that I feel cheated, ripped off and disgusted by the multi-millionaire founders of this sleazy outfit.