Six in 10 ticket websites breach consumer law

Websites selling tickets to sports and other events such as concerts have come under scrutiny from the European Commission (EC).

The Commission is monitoring these sites after it discovered that six in 10 breach European consumer laws in some way.

It said the main breaches it found with three-quarters of these problem sites were missing, incomplete or misleading information about the price (eg hidden taxes, delivery or handling charges).

Nearly half of the sites (48 per cent) gave missing, incomplete or misleading information about the ticket seller. Often a ticket seller claimed to be an authorised representative when it was not.

The work on ticketing sites is part of an ongoing EU sweep looking at the trading practices of online sellers. This is carried out by national authorities in European Union member countries.

Recently the Commission published the results of a sweep of websites selling electronic goods. It said that more than eight in 10 (84 per cent) now comply with EU consumer law; compared to less than half (44 per cent) in 2009.

Commissioner John Dalli said: “All this work is about tackling hidden charges, unfair practices and nasty surprises in the small print of websites."

During the first phase of the current sweep of the 410 ticketing sites throughout Europe, it was found that six in 10 (59 per cent) needed further investigation.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the UK’s national authority will now continue monitoring 22 websites out of the 73 that were investigated in the UK.

These sites will be required to comply with consumer law; if they fail to do so the traders face legal action and the websites can be closed down.