Harry Styles fans raged at Viagogo after touts hoovered up tickets for his Glasgow show.
The former One Direction star sold out his Ibrox gig fast, with many greedy scalpers quickly sticking briefs on the hated tout site for 10 times face value.
The cheapest briefs available on the secondary market are more than three times the £60 face value - and Harry’s promoters make it clear that anyone selling on for profit faces the tickets being cancelled.
Anti-tout campaigners claim the ongoing trade on Viagogo is being facilitated by Google, which drives fans towards the secondary sites.
They also slam the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for turning a blind eye to the relentless rip-offs on secondary sites like viagogo.
Scores of fans took to social media to complain about the rip-offs around the gig on June 11.
Seffie wrote: “Sites like viagogo selling tickets for crazy prices: 1. this needs to stop - so wrong to rip people off like this.
“2. How do these people get tickets when genuine fans can’t?! Ticket sales industry needs an overhaul.”
Furious dad Simon Houston tweeted: “What a surprise. Harry Styles sale this morning an absolute shambles with genuine fans not having a chance as bots/touts scoop them up to resale at twice the price. This needs sorted.”
Stephiek tweeted after the pre-sale earlier in the week: “Went online to viagogo to see that they are being sold under ‘no resale allowed’ at ‘face value’ by traders for £878 when face value is £111!”
Ticketing campaigner Adam Webb, of the FanFair Alliance, said rogue sites like viagogo are being allowed to break the law by UK authorities.
He said: “Harry Styles and his team have done the right thing by putting robust terms and conditions in place to protect fans, while also offering capped consumer-friendly ticket resale.
“Personally, I think they’ve done a good job here. These are high demand events, but as a result of their actions there’s relatively few tickets being touted on secondary websites.
“The problem they’re up against, however, is three-fold.
“Rogue ticket touting sites like viagogo and StubHub continue to operate in what appears to be open breach of consumer protection law.
“The Competition and Markets Authority is either too weak or under-resourced to tackle these breaches. And Google continues to allow these rip-off merchants to buy their way to the top of search results.
“If the CMA did the job they were paid to do, and if Google exhibited some corporate responsibility, then we’d see even more progress in cleaning up this rip-off market.”
Harry Styles fans have pleaded for a second Glasgow date after tickets for his Ibrox concert sold out in minutes on Friday morning.
Briefs for the postponed 2020 Love On Tour went on general sale at 9am, however fans of the Former One Direction singer reported the concert had sold out as soon as 9.02am.
Despite the capacity at Ibrox Stadium being over 50,000, the demand is sky high.
The Glasgow gig on June 11 is the first date of his 32-city world tour.
Styles, 27, postponed his entire tour in late 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic as restrictions on travelling and crowds tightened across the globe.
A spokesperson for Viagogo said: "Fans of Harry Styles who have made the investment to see him and are holding valid tickets should not be penalized. The ticket resale market is governed by the CMA, and viagogo is not in breach of any regulations by allowing listings for the Harry Styles tour.
“To put it into perspective, the number of tickets listed on our platform for the two Emirates Old Trafford shows in Manchester is less than 1% of total venue capacity. So we would suggest going back to the primary seller to ask where the other 99% of tickets are and whether they were all sold during general sale. "
A spokesperson for the CMA said the body has proposed changes on law to the UK government that would tighten up ticketing.
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