{"id":6673,"date":"2019-01-24T13:35:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T13:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/viagogo-threatened-with-fresh-court-action\/"},"modified":"2019-01-24T13:35:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T13:35:31","slug":"viagogo-threatened-with-fresh-court-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/viagogo-threatened-with-fresh-court-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Viagogo threatened with fresh court action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"A crowd at a concert\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/1920\/production\/_105323460_crowdgettyimages-989428992.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Ticket reseller Viagogo has been threatened with another court appearance by Britain&#8217;s competition watchdog and could face a large fine.<\/p>\n<p>The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) took Viagogo to court last year for breaking consumer protection law.<\/p>\n<p>The ticket seller was given a deadline of 17 January to comply with a series of changes, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/secondary-ticketing-websites\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">CMA said it still had &#8220;serious concerns&#8221; about the site.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Geneva-based Viagogo told the BBC: &#8220;We are compliant&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Court order<\/h2>\n<p>The CMA launched legal proceedings against ticketing websites last August over concerns that they were breaking consumer protection law.<\/p>\n<p>As a result Viagogo &#8211; along with rival second-hand ticket sellers StubHub and Ticketmaster &#8211; were ordered in November to change the way they run their websites.<\/p>\n<p>The court made a legally binding order instructing the websites to comply with the law by:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">telling purchasers of tickets if there is a risk that they will be turned away at the door<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">informing customers which seat in the venue they will get<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">providing information about who is selling the ticket, so people can benefit from enhanced legal rights when buying from a business<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">not giving misleading information about the availability and popularity of tickets &#8211; which had the potential to lead to customers being rushed into making a buying decision or making the wrong choice<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">making it easy for people to get their money back under Viagogo&#8217;s guarantee when things go wrong<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">preventing the sale of tickets a seller does not own and may not be able to supply<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Severe penalties&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>As of midnight on 17 January, the websites were required to have overhauled their processes to improve information about tickets listed for resale.<\/p>\n<p>The CMA said that following the deadline, it would do &#8220;a comprehensive review of the changes each website has made&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>Following its initial checks, the CMA said that it had &#8220;serious concerns that Viagogo has not complied with important aspects of the court order we secured against them&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have told Viagogo we expect them to make the necessary changes without delay. If they do not, we will go back to court to force them to do so.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>It added: &#8220;Severe penalties are available if they are found to be in contempt of court.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46359056\" class=\"story-body__link\">Viagogo ordered to clean up ticket sales<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-45367911\" class=\"story-body__link\">Watchdog sues ticket reseller Viagogo<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last year, the Digital Minister, Margot James, told the BBC that if fans had to use a secondary site to buy tickets, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-44299981\" class=\"story-body__link\">&#8220;don&#8217;t choose Viagogo &#8211; they are the worst&#8221;.  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>She was speaking after the Advertising Standards Authority referred Viagogo to National Trading Standards to investigate.<\/p>\n<p>The ASA had accused Viagogo of breaking UK advertising rules by failing to make additional fees clear.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46986588\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Ticket reseller Viagogo has been threatened with another court appearance by Britain&#8217;s competition watchdog and could face a large fine. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) took Viagogo to court last year for breaking consumer protection law. The ticket seller was given a deadline of 17 January to comply with a &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}