
I bought two tickets from Viagogo displayed at €32 each.
After our payment had been processed, a pop-up informed us we had been charged a €16 booking fee, a handling fee and VAT on top of the displayed price.
All in all, this came to about €30 over the advertised price of the tickets. When you’re a student, that’s a week’s worth of groceries.
AJ, London
The extra fees are only mentioned on the checkout page and then you have to scroll down to notice them. Some customers have found three-figure sums in extras added to their payment.
The website’s help centre mentions the existence of fees to cover the costs, but states, unhelpfully, they vary depending on the event.
Viagogo declined to comment but merely sent a link to an FAQ page that makes no mention of fees.
The ticket reselling giant appears to be defying the Advertising Standard’s Authority crackdown last month on misleading ticket pricing.
The regulator announced that it had ordered four reselling websites, including Viagogo, to make tax and fees clear in its advertised ticket price, after receiving complaints from FanFair Alliance, an organisation which campaigns against online ticket touting.
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