We saw Elton John at Hope Estate the other night.
Elton was amazing, as far as I could tell, but the night was very much soured by the fact that my wonderful wife (Kazzie) had paid top dollar for what she thought were the very best seats – right down the front.
To our amazement and disgust, her purchase order had somehow been diverted from the Ticketek site to Viagogo, and instead of VIP seats down the front, we got seats 200 metres from the stage at a face value of about 40% of what we paid.
Now, I am the first to agree that this sounds like an appalling first world problem, but how on earth does it happen?
How does a search on (what she thought was) Ticketek somehow get transferred to a scalping site?
Viagogo are supposed to be a big name in ticket sales but poor Kazzie had no idea – when she searched on Ticketek – that the very large amount of money she thought she was paying for the best experience was somehow being scammed?
Yes, scammed.
I have no problem with sites like Viagogo being allowed to exist, they serve a legitimate purpose for people who want to resell tickets they can’t use.
Or even people who simply want to resell tickets for a profit.
But I have a massive problem with a site that utilises some subtle algorithm or back-end script or confusing framing device that effectively transfers purchase orders from standard sites to their scalping site!
How many others spent way more than they had to, to try and get close to Elton for his final bow? We didn’t even realise we had Viagogo tickets until all the publicity about people having dodgy tickets blew up in December.
At least we did get in.
I tried not to let the experience sour my enjoyment of the evening – and to his credit, Elton put on one hell of a show. There was a lot of love in the air.
I just wish I’d been as close to it as I expected to be.
How does Viagogo continue to do business in this country without being prosecuted for business practices which defy any normal standard of commercial decency?
I understand they were thrown off google last July for their sneaky practices, obviously before we bought our tickets early last year. If they’ve been let back on then I hope there’s been a major change in the way they do business.
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