Auckland High Court told 90% of tickets on Viagogo sold by scalpers

New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has this week told the High Court in Auckland that scalpers are responsible for 90% of the tickets sold via controversial ticket resale platform Viagogo.

In the High Court seeking a declaration that Viagogo misled consumers by claiming to be an ‘official’ seller of ‘guaranteed’ tickets to events, including concerts, the Commission is continuing action first commenced in 2018, , accusing it of breaching New Zealand’s consumer protection laws.  

The expected month-long civil trial, which began on Wednesday, follows the Commission having received ongoing complaints from ticketbuyers who said they had purchased fake tickets for enlarged prices.

While previous legal action undertaken by the Commission against Viagogo saw the Switzerland-based reseller voluntarily agree to make some changes to its practices in New Zealand to avoid a court injunction, the Commission is now pursuing wider legal action, contending in its opening statement in Court stressed that Viagogo is mainly a marketplace for commercial scalpers.

As reported by New Zealand news website Stuff, the Commission’s legal representative, Andy Luck, told the Court “Viagogo admits that over 90% of tickets that are sold in New Zealand are from scalpers; people selling tickets in commercial quantities. It’s a website for ticket scalpers to sell to the general public”.

Summarising issues with Viagogo and the way it promotes and advertises tickets, Luck advised that scalper using the platform often relied on bots to vacuum up tickets from primary sites with some scalpers advertising the sale of tickets they don’t even have yet, something he said Viagogo should be doing more to stop.

Calling for the court to formally declare that the resale platform has breached New Zealand’s Fair Trading Act, the Commission is also asking for the clause that was in Viagogo’s contract, which claimed that it could only be sued by customers in New Zealand through the Swiss Courts, to be formally declared unfair.

The Court head that the commission had received 1,300 complaints or communications about Viagogo, and that between 18th July 2016 and 31st October 2022, it resold roughly 323,000 event tickets in New Zealand. 

Viagogo denies it misled consumers and that it ever used the world ‘official’ in relation to events. Aaron Lloyd, who was representing Viagogo, said that the company provided a platform for people to sell tickets to people who wanted to by them.

Lloyd advised “Viagogo tells the world it’s a secondary market, and the world knows it.”

In a statement, Viagogo Managing Director, Cris Miller claimed “Viagogo cannot make detailed comment on the legal claims while the matter is before the court. However, we can say that the issues raised by the Commerce Commission relate to the way our ticketing website worked in the past and do not reflect current operations. 

“We believe that we have addressed the matters of concern raised by the NZ Commerce Commission and have made it a priority to ensure the Viagogo website is operated transparently and in compliance with consumer expectations and consumer protection legislation.  We remain committed to complying with these requirements.

“While it would be easy to prejudge Viagogo in this matter, we ask that you allow the court process to play out and hear the perspective of both sides.”

The Case is due to conclude early next month.