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Viagogo seller says fraudsters grabbed his touting profits

By | Published on Monday 25 September 2017

Viagogo

We’re used to hearing about disgruntled buyers having problems with the always controversial secondary ticketing website Viagogo, but just to be different, here’s a disgruntled seller.

The Mail’s This Is Money website last week reported on a man who was left nearly two grand out of pocket after monies made by reselling tickets on the Viagogo site ended up in someone else’s bank account.

The seller claims fraudsters hacked into his profile on the resale platform and changed his bank account details. After realising the problem, the seller found himself shouting at the same Viagogo wall of silence as those who accidentally buy over-priced touted tickets on the site and try to get themselves a refund.

Presumably in a bid to garner some sympathy for the ticket tout – given we’ve been conditioned to hate the sellers in secondary ticketing land – This Is Money stresses that the man in question buys gig tickets for his family and then occasionally sells one or two on if some family members can’t attend.

Which makes this man exactly the sort of seller companies like Viagogo love, because they play into the official line of: “We’re just here for people who can’t attend the occasional gig they bought tickets for, we’re not a market-place for industrial level touts who employ unethical tactics to access large numbers of tickets to in demand events”.

You’d therefore think Viagogo would have been more helpful once this seller’s money went missing. Though perhaps the company was too busy schmoozing the industrial level touts who employ unethical tactics to access large numbers of tickets to in demand events. Because for Viagogo, those guys are much bigger business.

Anyway, it seems this seller realised his cash had gone missing because a more-significant-than-usual payment of £506 – for tickets he touted to Adele’s recent no-touting-allowed UK tour – failed to arrive. It was at this point that he noticed the bank account details on his Viagogo profile had been altered.

“He immediately changed the bank details on the account and started sending messages via the website asking for a refund. All of these were ignored”, the This Is Money article reports. “Eventually, a staff member from Viagogo noted his problem, and he asked for the bank account details [of where] the money had been sent to. It relented and he received it, along with the sort code and name of the fraudster”.

“But”, it adds, “because the money had not been taken directly from his account, the bank in question – Halifax Edgware branch – was unable to help him. He reported the criminal activity to Action Fraud and the police who in turn put him onto Trading Standards”.

Surely, given that he’d lost his two grand because his Viagogo account had been hacked, the secondary ticketing site was taking an interest in this fraud? No. “If someone from Viagogo calls you it is impossible to call or email them back”, reports the seller, confirming that communicating with the touting company has remained challenging.

Taking up the case on behalf the seller, This Is Money has asked Viagogo how someone managed to hack his account and change his bank details, why the resale site’s customer service is so rubbish, and whether the firm has an in-house team dealing with fraud on its platform. Needless to say, the company’s response so far has been silence.

So that’s all fun isn’t it? Maybe the touts need to set up their own version of the Victims Of Viagogo Facebook group, which has been helping buyers who are navigating the shady ticketing site’s special brand of non-customer service.



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