Ticket Sales Abuse Committee Select Committees

Good morning, and welcome to this further session of the Select

Committee looking into ticket abuse. It had been our intention to have

evidence alongside you this morning, but they have decided not to send a

representative. Despite the fire they have a substantial office in

Cannon Street, they don't believe they have Aqua representation in the

UK to assist the committee with its enquirer. -- adequate

representation. Given that other ticket companies have given evidence

to the committee, is disappointed they don't feel that they have any

evidence they can contribute. I feel that there's been substantial

movements on progress made since the session last year and today the

House of Lords is debating the Government amendments to the economy

Bill to bring in the power to create an offence of harvesting and selling

tickets on the competition has taken its investigation to the next is

looking at abuse of selling in the ticketing market. The Government has

referred to HMRC it the issue raised last time about people not declaring

profits made from ticket sales. So there's lots of debate in progress.

If we are to see progress made is clamping down on abuse in the

ticketing market, it is important that companies comply with those

changes and with the UK law. The purpose of these sessions has been

to identify areas where UK law is not been complied with and look at

areas where it should be strengthened. We feel that with the

necessary legislation, that if companies do not comply and flout UK

law, they should face restrictions on trade and advertising.

Perhaps you could give us your perspective on their spirits of your

company in selling tickets and seeing them up for sale in the

secondary market through the site is operated by various companies? I

need is to give you some history first. We started as a record shop

and used as all tickets over the counter. By gritters software to

sell them more efficiently. Now we sell around 10 million a year in the

UK. The majority is transacted under what we call a white label format,

under the guise of our contracting parties. So Glastonbury or the Royal

horticultural Society, we operate as if we are part of the organising

party. We have to be whiter than white. We have never colluded with

secondary spaces, so we find it... We don't like the section, we don't

like it at all. We've been offered money to work with them and

refocused on to them, but we have not. We support the efforts of our

friends behind us and you lot to legislate against this. But it is

difficult to stop. If I can be so bold as to say I'm not a firm

believer in this. We have a number of technologies to stop this type of

stuff. We don't see it, so we have added more technology and we do not

seek conversion rates dropping but the ratio of customer coming into

people transacting, so I think there's more can be done. Last week

we launched in test mode and exchange platform integrated to our

own, so we allow customers to Celtic as they bought through as and a very

small mark up. Previously, we weren't doing anything. They could

been suspicion. We thought it would make sense to put ourselves in the

position of having a mechanism whereby it is clear for everyone to

see which standard... Which side of the line we stand on. It is a messy

business. Give us some examples? If we see them and we know who was

transacted them, then we can block them. But these are clever people.

They have multiple names, card numbers and e-mail addresses and

phone numbers. Any identifier that we would use to collate and track

and spot this activity that we could use to cancel those orders they will

try and get around. But it is obvious that if we are selling high

profile events, thousands of tickets a minute, some will find their way

onto the black market. Sometimes there is little we can do. The

rewards are too great for these peoples, so they will find a way. Do

you approach other companies and say, someone is selling tickets on

your site, which is in breach of the terms?

It's kind of pointless. They are not going to talk to you, they are not

going to talk to me. We have to start with the customer. We have got

technology in place, velocity checking, which I think is what some

others use. We instituted that technology and the processes for

credit card fraud more than ticket touting. It will allow us to find by

a range of identifiers batches of customers that are clearly the same

people, by an unbelievable number of tickets Friday diversity of shows

and we can place those in suspense automatically and they are subject

to human verification. Sometimes we call the customer, we will ask for

credit card statements or whatever, to verify they are real people. We

will challenge anything that looks out of the ordinary but we cannot

stop people who buys six do this and six than that. There are gaps in the

system. We are not the only primary agency in the marketplace so it is

very easy to stack up a good batch of tickets to sell on a secondary

space. A range of identities and a range of primary transaction. See

Tickets will not talk to you, but have you tried to engage with some

of the secondary sites to say these are the problems that we are dealing

fits. -- See Tickets. Viagogo. There is the promoter. You will hear from

them later. They play significant bets on shows. They invest in

talent. They hired venues. They hope it's going to go according to plan.

We can only be so aggressive. If we are fulfilling our objective, the

promoted so the be extremely stringent that sometimes there is a

fuzzy bit in the middle. Viagogo do not care what we think, whether we

think the market is bad or whatever. We can't cancel borderline

transactions. That impacts the promoter. Those tickets might not be

sold. We are in the middle or little bit. It can be quite complicated.

Thank you very much indeed. Before we start, can I raise my

declarations in the register of members interest to the clerk? It is

not unusual for a member of Parliament to be invited to a show.

Thank you very much for coming. You are largely responsible for this

inquiry taking place. It has stoked my keen interest having tried to buy

for Green Day tickets via your site. Which I thought I had, as you are

aware, then it appeared that I had failed to buy those old tickets. --

four tickets during the checkout process as I put my credit card

details and I was told by the site the tickets were no longer

available. You mentioned that you don't believe what's are a huge

problem in terms of your particular site but can you explain how I had

my four tickets stolen from under my nose. I will do my best. It looked

as if, this was fateful, it's kind of a lucky break, if it was actually

you, I wrote to you. Anyway, that aside, what to spied on that

particular day throughout the event, clever character managed to Spieth,

these are my own terms, our system in a bit more tickets than he was

allowed. What he seemed to be doing, it was a heap because we tracked him

down, he had nine transactions. Somehow, it is quite complicated

described how it works but when you enter our site and you select two

seats, those seats are held fees are ten minutes to allows you to

transact and finish transaction. Somehow this individual had gone in

with a token, the system uses tokens. It carries it through the

site and when he transact, the token is taken away. Somehow this

character managed to find a way to stack up the number of tokens and

effectively take other people's tickets. It was a rare

vulnerability, the vulnerability has been passed. It was not robotic.

We're nobodies and to believe that. -- we have no reason. He has been

blacklisted. This is the best acclamation I can given a

nontechnical way. It was an odd one for sure. It was not robotic. Had it

happened to you before? In never happened before, it had never

happened since. Yeah, when I got sure e-mail on that moment, I

thought this was interesting. Technical errors do happen. I think

what sort of raise my concern is between the lines there was a

suggestion, forgive me if I say so, you thought we were doing something

untoward ourselves and therefore with this tickets find their way

onto the secondary market place. That is when I decided I should

write to you and set forward our position and that is how I find

myself here today. It strikes me then because this was last year, it

strikes me that your site is quite weak in terms of its security. If it

is vulnerable to a punter who is a bit crafty winsome tokens being able

to pinch tickets, does that slightly worried? What action have you taken

since then to make your site... It was a vulnerability. We do that all

software in-house. We have eight talented and dedicated team of

developers. We test the software as best as we can, sometimes there will

be vulnerabilities. On a high security perspective, first and

foremost, our site has been verified under payment card industry

standards, the pavement card business has put in place a number

of standards that site had to adhere to to be certified as being city of

false credit card transactions. We take that box. -- as being secure

for credit card transactions. It has a human management overlay. That

device is to screen out anything, any traffic it detects as abusive,

robotic or anything that is unbelievable or originates from

territories that we probably wouldn't want to transact with.

Inside the transaction process, we have got our proprietary code which

manages seating and seating allocations and dealing with

customers. We also use other technologies like 3-D secure which

is the online chip and pin so when you use a credit card, it will ask

for the third digit, the eight digit of your password. Or in the case of

American Express, it will send a text to your phone with a PIN number

that you tied back in. On the security basis, I think our site is

very strong. I think the vulnerability was in some coding

that we had done that was not tested in an appropriate way. You are

confident now your site is bombproof to hackers? As best we can beat that

we were anyway. How this character managed to find this, I have no

idea. Whether it was by accident or by design, I have no idea. Answering

your question directly, yes. You keep a log of all transactions in

terms of credit cards, addresses, do you ever find that there are

anomalies in terms of multiple diggers being bought from the same

street? All the time. What action do you take? I will just reiterate. We

have processed inside the transaction loads that we detect by

key personally Greene personal identifiers. It will play down by IP

address all postcode or whatever. We have got our own rules, and very

basic example, if it is a new customer that we have not transacted

with before and made by more than 12 tickets on a two-week period, our

system will like that. Any order that is flagged by the rules we have

built up over time will be placed in suspense. The order will not be

fulfilled, it will not be sent to someone who has not verified those

orders by side. And asked the question whether those orders are

believable, yes or no. Do we believe that someone bought six Green Day

tickets, six Rod Stewart tickets, six Adele tickets, is that a genuine

customer? Our customer service team responsible for doing that. If they

pass the checks which could include a phone call to the customer, then

one button is Bush and those orders release for fulfilment. If they

failed the test, when the button is pushed, the tickets are cancelled.

We send an e-mail, with careful language, we can't accuse people are

things, saying you have breached rules with multiple transactions.

The origins of the processes whether capturing credit card fraud wishes

to be a huge problem for our business, not so because the

inclusion of 3-D secure technologies. This is how we do it.

You had instances of credit card fraud, you reference a few cases

too. Have you referred any of those cases to authorities or police? Yes,

yes. Before 3-D secure came in, credit card fraud was the biggest

risks to our business. There was one case, probably five years ago,

?200,000 worth of broad. It was in multiple jurisdictions. It was very

sophisticated and very clever in the way they had use e-mail addresses,

phone numbers, to mask their activity. It was when we got it at

Mass that we could see what was going on. When we reported it,

multiple jurisdictions, Metropolitan Police would not touch it. Each

Stewart Dickson wouldn't touch it because there was overlap with the

other jurisdictions. -- each jurisdiction. We knew the addresses,

we did not know the people of course, we cannot verify whether

they are the real names. We knew the addresses involved. There was little

we could do to it. The police came to our office, a heap of stuff like

this, you can see what they think about. It was the cost of sale, it

is a risk of doing business. The new technology is in place, online chip

and pin or 3-D secure, there has limited that as a risk to the extent

of Gloucester, I have got the numbers here, we transacted over ?3

billion and did not suffered very much credit card vote. We are using

the technologies they can we doubt or filter out people that could be

using the secondary market. Finally, you transact the Glastonbury

ticketing platform which, as most people know, is virtually impossible

to get a ticket for. And certainly you can't buy a ticket on the

secondary market because you are not allowed in. If that bill-mac -- it

seems sensible. That works very well for Glastonbury. In terms of being

able to identify a ticket, there is current consumer rights act

legislation which is a ticket is then sold on, it has to have wrote

in the number and identifier. Do you think that legislation is working?

-- row seat number. Probably not. No. No, essentially, it is not, is

it? Otherwise we would not be that if. What further information on the

ticket would be useful in terms of being able to track a the primary

seller, presumably you are keen, or the people you work on behalf, are

keen to identify where ticket has originated from and it has been

resold so the original terms and conditions can be enforced? What

additional information do you think would be useful or amendment say to

the consumer rights act which I know is being proposed in the law? What

additional information do you think would be useful to make this a level

playing field for consumers? It is a difficult question. I do not have a

smart answer to it. A ticket transaction to be four tickets. You

would have four to give under your name. There are three people you may

not know who you are going to take. OK, you own those four tickets. At

how much would you want to disclose personally on a secondary site.

Would you want to bid your own personal information? I do not know.

The number, original face value, validation of those things is

important. I will go on to say what we launched last week in a bit if I

have the opportunity. But I think it is a very difficult thing to ask

people to tell the truth. If they are looking to turn a profit, take a

?20 ticket and sell at the 200 through our friends here, then why

would they tell the truth? Within not help if there was a unique

reference number? There are bar codes and everything. What does that

say? What does that really say, the unique reference number is 123,456?

The customer buying booze tickets from a secondary site, that has got

to be good. -- buying both tickets. I do not want to go and say there

should be a huge ticket transaction database in the UK. That would be

possibly insane. I don't know. I am open to ideas. We will work with the

industry as best as we can did throw this thing. I do not have a smart

answer because this is not a new problem, it is an old problem. Thank

you. I got to see the show. It was great. Can I ask in regards to

selling tickets for Glastonbury? A major event of global standing. How

realistic is the sort of techniques that are used there to be used for

smaller events? We've done it for the Ryder Cup and

a number of other events. To give you a quick summary of what it

involves, before the tickets go on sale, customers interested in the

event log in their personal information and a full-colour

passport mugshot of themselves. There's a number of barriers there

before you even buy the ticket. So when you buy the ticket, you went to

the preference number for that registration number and at that

point, we already know who the customer is. You take the photo,

print it on the ticket and off it goes. It makes sense for

Glastonbury. I can't disclose the number in the database but it's

massively oversubscribed for the number of tickets available. For

other events that possibly don't have that sort of demand ratio, it

would be a barrier and impediment to sales. It's kind of overkill. For

Glastonbury, they run the event, they own the site and they control

100% of the tickets. We could create a custom solution for those guys.

They had a problem and said what's the solution and that was what we

put in place. Ryder Cup was another client using exactly the same

service. But it's not viable to offer it? I don't think so because a

lot of ticketing is impulsive. The actual window transaction between

transaction time and event could be quite short. Glastonbury is a kind

of cultural unique phenomenon. Do you think that sort of approach

could be used for other major acts selling major events? Yes, of

course, but it's up to the artists, manager, venue, agents. Glastonbury

is in a bunch of fields in Somerset. When you walk into the O2, they have

got their own processes and security, you can't just walk in and

say, do it like this. Ticketmaster I think should be commended. I don't

like to commend competitors too often but what they do seems to do

some good. I think the industry is trying its best within certain

constraints. Thank you. In terms of the consumer rights act, we have

heard evidence separately that this could be a matter of enforcement of

that. What balance would you put that on? Would you say it was an

enforcement failure? I think the legislation is clear so it's got to

be enforcement. I'm sure the police and everyone else has got a lot to

do. This is ticketing, it's rock and roll and as old as the hills. What

do you do? You have the law in place, ignore it and they are not

subject to sanction,. Do you think the law is sufficient? From what I

read your trying to do, it's pretty clear but it's not stopping it's

what is the next step? One doesn't impede the business we operate. The

business still has to be fluid and the line for impulsive transactions.

It's lived entertainment. I'm looking at recommendations of

Professor Waterson in his review and he talks about, let's look at

secondary platforms first. He says some platforms, they have no

responsibility to make sure sellers comply with the consumer rights act.

Do you think the act should make sure they do comply? Absolutely. The

problem at the moment with the exception of Ticketmaster, Viagogo

is completely isolated from any particular seller. We have developed

our own integrated secondary platform that allows customers to

resell tickets within a price controlled mechanism which ticks

boxes. It only works our customers. You can't come along with a football

ticket and float it on our platform. You can select a transaction. We

know who you were because we cleared you through these mechanisms. We

already spoke about them earlier. We know the face value because we sold

the ticket originally. So we can float that ticket with confidence.

The buyer knows that ticket is being sold as originally sold by us so the

seller knows the original price. We can in to mediate the whole process

because we are in the middle for both sides. That is one way of doing

it but again that's just for us and doesn't fix the industry. It's a

good option for clients of See Tickets. It's the option for our

clients. We have to look after our clients and customers. If a client

says does, we will let you provide the exchange mechanism, we have got

the one that will tick all the boxes. But only for tickets sold

through us. A fairly selfish motive to this. We would like to get more

of the primary pie because we've got a mechanism that protects and

customer. On the that Professor Waterson put down, we've done our

bit. Do you think that if the secondary market, there is a

requirement to make sure that sellers to comply, will that make a

difference? Properly not. If they don't turn up to talk to you, the

people providing the platforms, it's hard to see... I'm afraid to say it

but it's true. A question on the primary market, one of the

recommendations is that you should do more to guard against bots. What

else do you think the industry can do and what is your view of how your

competitors also guard against bots? If you look at France, for arguments

sake, I also chair a French business panel, ticket agents are licensed.

Rather like travel agents. Everything is licensed in France.

It's hard work! But that's France! They could be that. Whereby ticket

agents are licensed, maybe they provide those as travel agents do.

So there would be some mechanism to check the validity of the operators

in the market to make sure they are not rogue and compliant with

legislation. It's difficult if people operate offshore. You can't

do anything about that. In France, we operate a platform which again is

an ethical price controlled service. In France, tickets can only be sold

on the secondary market if the organising party elected to do so

and give permission. There's also that permission -based system.

That's possibly part of the answer to your question. But it doesn't

stop people in Geneva advertising in France, acquiring tickets in France

and selling them to French customers from computers plugged into Geneva.

It's difficult. A question on the issue of bots. If I can build on

that question, they are not necessarily a problem for See

Tickets. Through the wonders of technology, I was having a little

look at the internet and a simple search for ticket bots rings you to

a cracking little site called ticket bots dot net where you can see these

arts that will sweep up tickets for you. There is a See Tickets website

spinner dot. It's got five starts reviews. Clearly some punters are

thinking it's working. I wondered whether... It says it allows you to

reserve multiple tickets and do multiple searches simultaneously for

one event or multiple events. I wonder how that stacks up... These

things certainly exist, I've seen them all. I've re-engineered or

repurposed load testing services. That's what they are, testing

websites. YouTube shows some of these in operation. They does mouse

clicks and you record your actions on the website and you savers and it

goes. Just talking about what we do about bots, before I described this

hardware and human interface that sits over the top of our hosting

environment, which will weed out anything that seems to be of a

robotic nature, but also and when we met, you said one of our competitors

said we don't use catch up. Because if you look on you tube again you

will see they are very easy to crack. Google's I'm not a robot from

a month ago, it's a robotic device and Google has a wealth of

information on devices, what they use for etc. It's got a good idea of

what is a robot and what isn't. Have you bought one of these? It might be

an idea to test it. I will go and do that. Good. What we found, when we

put the Google device in place, we didn't see any drop off in

conversion rates, except for the number of visitors to our website,

number of people actually transacting, the ratio remained the

same. It tells us we either... Bots can't get through or the robotic

activity on our site was negligible as to not impact that ratio at all.

I think it takes a bit of a herring. -- a red herring and I don't think

it's all about bots. It definitely isn't. I've found dissenting online

and was Gandalf the same question, clearly there there is an issue and

you sound as if you feel powerless to stop this. Is that where you are?

Apart from the mechanisms I've outlined this morning, we are kind

of powerless. If you bought six tickets today, we don't know you and

you bought six tickets and floated them through Viagogo, we are

powerless to stop that. If you came back tomorrow and did it again and

the day after, we wouldn't be powerless because we could build a

profile of you. However you transacted, we would find you

eventually, our algorithms for want of a better term, would identify

your transactions as being suspect and hence your orders would be

placed in suspense and then we could trap them and cancel them or

whatever. But it's easy to get through our system, not with bots

but just picking up your mobile and putting in your card number, it's

easy to buy and sell what you want. So in that case we are powerless. It

may deter people on the fringes... What's the word... The more honest

might think, I don't really want to do that. There is legislation in

place and I'll pass on that. But the hardcore abusers, no legislation is

going to stop them, just as it doesn't stop criminality sadly. It

will minimise it. So on that basis, yes. Bats the definition of

powerless, to a degree, yes, we are. Have you thought of taking civil

action against these people? For what? They bought something from us,

what they do with it, we can't... The terms and conditions of ticket

sales on our sites are specific, we will cancel those issues if we get

them. But after the fact, it's quite difficult because the carry out some

action, we have to suffer some form of damages I assume. I'm not a

lawyer. What have we suffered? Someone bought something from us. I

think pursuing this through courts, taking a guy who bought six tickets

sold them, to court, how will that end up? We will pay an absolute

fortune and get him in court and then what happens? He gets a ?100

fine or whatever. That's not going to help. It may deter some people

but if the sanction is great enough, then what can we do? We know for the

Olympics, there was a ?5,000 fine and they went up to 20,000. That

type of threat makes a difference but I think through the law courts,

it's not as... A crime, I guess... It is a crime, I guess but what

businesses can achieve, I don't know.

And it is a negative answer but it is the truth. Going back to the

question about the credit card, that was material fraud. Material value

to others ?200,000, Gaughan. We had the evidence but we could not pursue

it, what could we do? -- gone. Everything you seem to do seems to

be done with six tickets. That is just an example. It seems to be the

magic number. That would've caused me issues because I have four kids.

It was obvious when I went any place I would buy six or eight tickets.

How do you differentiate between genuine people who want to buy a

number of tickets and people who are trying to fiddle the system? It is

subjective. If we look to your order history and it was certain type, the

tickets to the same address and the events with the same profile, the

transaction of events was believable, you would be passed. If

you had been buying tickets every single day for a diversity of

events, it would be unbelievable. And perhaps it would be believed if

you were selling to these guys but I presume you did not. Ultimately it

comes down to human verification, knowing who the acts are and how

this thing works and say yes or no, this thing works and say yes or no,

to invite you people into the sea to invite you people into the sea

this process. It is not a problem. We do we can. -- in two C. Thank

you. Can I share your frustration about Viagogo not being present

today, if not contempt of Parliament they have clearly shown lack of

respect to parliamentarians and the British public. If we had a top of

lard I am sure we could put it on the chair today. You mentioned

earlier one you have started a resealing capability for people who

bought tickets on your site. You mention that was a small mark-up,

what is it? 5% over the place the customer paid for the ticket. There

is a cap on the... Absolutely, the price controls are in the system.

You cannot float the system for anything other than the system says

it can be sold for. What about handling fees and others? That is

the transaction fee which is passed to the sellers, they can send the

tickets to the customer but it is all disclosed on the site. If I had

a couple of tickets priced at 50p a couple of tickets priced at 50p

for ?110? 110 is 5%. Or is it 105. for ?110? 110 is 5%. Or is it 105.

Small amount, yes, plus postage fee for which you would be compensated.

You will not get paid as a seller until five days after the event so

after we know the event has gone on and there's been no issue with that

transaction. We sit in the middle of it, we do not disclose the identity

know you that those tickets from us, know you that those tickets from us,

we know the original price and bar codes, we know everything, we know

it can be sold and guaranteed and authenticated by others. Obviously

there are many examples of tickets being sold multiple times their face

value and second in the markets, what do you think is an appropriate

multiple or mark-up? The cost of doing business is the cost of doing

business. We operate a competitive marketplace so roughly 10% is fair.

We can afford to sell a ticket and apprentice piece for 10%. The

secondary space should operate at secondary space should operate at

10% also over the value of the purchase. -- second in the price for

10%. This morning I looked at a ticket sale on Viagogo for Little

Mix on the 7th of July. They have an interesting site which will talk

about later on. But tickets for ?45, after you have gone through several

points, face value was ?45, they are being sold for 700 and 11p each.

Only when you get to the final point do you realise. -- ?711. Only until

I press the buy button do I realise that is an additional charge. The

total price for two tickets valued at ?45 each is ?1900. That is crazy.

libertarians might say, that is libertarians might say, that is

fine, what do you think? That is atrocious. You should buy because it

is much cheaper. I do not know what to say about it, it is insane. Their

site is a comedy. The charge you mentioned earlier on about in a

digital age and the international environment, it is difficult to

restrict one country. So if the UK said a maximum of 50%, it would be

difficult to enforce internationally? Yes, it is consumer

education, a kitemark for ticket agents possibly. There is very

little you can do, you know more about this than I do. If they can

operate like they do out of Geneva and get away with it, it will

continue. Do you think that is the role for the artists in this as

well? Yes but it is rock and roll, we do but not to the extent of every

advertising being about secondary ticketing. It is not what artists

want to do. It does not reflect well on them? It probably does not which

is a shame because they are not part of this. They are part of it because

they are the artist in the first place. They are not complicit in it.

Do you think the artist community is vocal enough about its? I think they

have been. The first time I met the manager of Arctic monkeys and the

manager of iron maiden in Soho, eight years ago, it was the same

thing. It was a cohort of artists who wanted to do something about it.

Know the core heart -- cohort has changed, it just goes on and on.

They want to try and do something They want to try and do something

about this but if they don't get action, they will move onto other

things. There is only so much they can do, my opinion. Thank you. You

must share the anger of people, from the evidence you have given us, you

are seeing the primary market is the solution and there is investment you

have to make to put security in place, alongside that our sites like

Viagogo who are making huge amounts of money about people abusing the

ticketing market. It seems to me there must be an obligation placed

on those sites to police activity on those sites and not just make money

out of the racketeering of ticket touts? I agree, there should be,

especially if the UK registered businesses. I have to point out

absent friends. If they are operating offshore, they can do with

a want. I agree with you but it is very difficult. There are a

occasions when the absence of Viagogo speaks volumes. For sure.

You talk about 10% as a reasonable margin, if you could introduce a cap

on that and legislate for it, do you think that would work or drivers

back to ticket touts outside? I think if the rewards are so great,

it will drive people to find the most profitable channel whatever be

tried to do. We had another session with people from Ticketmaster or

whenever, Phil Collins at the Albert Hall concert, the promoter is live

nation, the primary seller is Ticketmaster, it is on the advert

for the concert which says tickets cannot be resold or exchanged. We

put this to them and they were very evasive. What is your view on that?

I do not know enough about it. It is an interesting one. Is this a fair

way to do business? If the rewards are there, 26% up on the ticketing

last year, this is part of their business but whether it is

legitimate, I do not know. Customers are buying and selling in a free

market therefore it is legitimate. I do not know enough about live

nation's ticketing to know whether what they do is underhand. Thank you

very much. I would like to associate myself as well with the chair's

comments about Viagogo not turning up. We say this rarely that we have

an empty chair for somebody. Most organisations have enough respect

for Parliament that when you're asked to appear, they turn up and to

their arguments. It says something for their lack of self-respect and

the shady nature of their operations that they feel they cannot appear

here and answered questions. It is not just the music industry that

finds itself in bad order of others, it is also sport. I was interested

to read a Daily Record investigation about Scottish rugby were going by a

reporter who will appear and give evidence shortly. What is

extraordinary is that Scottish rugby are passing on tickets to Viagogo.

Some of the sums are absolutely extraordinary. Tickets bought for

?115 were being sold for ?1956. Once Viagogo had taken the cut of ?450 a

time for quote, VAT and booking fees. That is kind of crazy.

Scottish rugby has accused to answer, doesn't it? Viagogo's model

of old was although rights actions. -- rights acquisitions. They used to

have Premier League football clubs. They said this was a good service

for fans. Here is a lump of money. UBC then selling Premier games. You

do not state very much now. -- you would say then selling. They can

induce a client to work with them by writing a big fat cheque. At the

moment we're not doing anything illegal but that is the question to

be asked of these organisations who feel that this is the right thing to

do. That is my opinion. What is that question? Why would you take a lump

of money from these organisations to allow your tickets to be touted and

your fans to be ripped off? In my words. That is a very good question,

you should be a journalist because that is the question that our

journalist asked the Scottish Rugby Union. Their response, I think some

of them were derisory. One of their responses was that the reason they

passed on his tickets was because they want the stadium to be filled.

That's a good one. Isn't it? I think... That was my thoughts,

imagine being the idiot press officer they gave that and so. I do

not know. Also to have so little respect for your fans. You don't

actually think they are going to turn up for one of your rugby

matches? And with Scotland playing, of course, it is always going to be

backed as everybody knows. I do not know, it is bizarre. I have a lot of

support from my friend the chair. It is a serious point, what we have

done until no is to be a great deal of attention to the ticket touts but

as Mr Huddleston says, maybe we should be turning our attention to

where the tickets originally from in the first place and asking these

influential rock and pop stars and also the sports organisations to be

taking a stronger stance. I think so probably. Although perhaps we could

not take a leaf out of the books of the Bay City Rollers because I

notice that when the discovered notice that when the

their tickets were going to ticket their tickets were going to ticket

touts, they decided they would turn up at that daughter of the ticket

touts and call him a parasite. -- at the door of the ticket tout. And

asked him to get a real job. I suspect every person in this room

thinks the ticket touts should get a real job. Looking at another Daily

Record story, when he turns up at the door of this ticket tout who was

selling Bay City Rollers tickets they discovered he was driving a

very lavish card. Not surprising that.

Thank you very much. That concludes this part of the depositions.

Thank you for joining us, the second panel on our enquiry on the abuse on

the ticketing market. Could I start by asking you about the obligations

placed on primary sellers. We've heard the evidence we received in

the first panel. We asked whether the preregistration of customers

that operates for major events like Glastonbury is something that is

suitable or appropriate for other events, other major events. I'd be

interested in your views and whether you feel there are more people, but

primary sellers could do to make sure the tickets end up in the right

hands or whether this requires a bigger solution across the whole of

the primary and secondary markets? Mr Kelly? I recollect Hamilton

musical and so far we have spoken about primarily the sports and music

markets. The theatre market is slightly different I think. We would

normally work with most players in the primary market so it would be

unusual for us to deal with ten or 12, 14 major ticket agencies. Events

like Glastonbury, the way they work, they deal through See Tickets. We do

work with various agencies because they have different strengths. One

has a particular strength in the tourist market, others are a global

brand, others may have specialist marketing and presence in the

education market. Sizing for a registration system along the lines

of Plastun bridgework, in my mind, we would have to have a central

database through one ticket agencies are not sure it would work for the

theatre agency. That won't work in the world of rock and pop. We have

investigated it. Glastonbury have a huge gross each year and are able to

implement a costly system and they have the ability to have one act as

a control system at one venue. If you take an example of the O2 arena

in London, similar to the West End, you will find up to ten different

agencies selling tickets for that. Their systems are all slightly

different, some are very different and to try to bring them together

would not work. It's the 100% inventory class to rehouse that

allows them to do that. Some of our theatre shows runs for years. They

are not one-off events with limited capacity. We will sell to 600,000

odd people a year on selection. A great deal of care has gone into

trying to racial tickets for Hamilton go to people buying them

legitimately. Some have ended up on secondary sites for sale like

Viagogo four ?2500 ago. What action do you feel you could take and do

you think that the action of ticket tout or opportunistic fans? It's

more than ?2500, they are listed between 350 and 7500 fans. They only

appear on Viagogo. We did a deal with Ticketmaster. We talk to

various agencies about the problems we anticipated and Ticketmaster came

back with what we thought was the best solution. Four major secondary

resellers in the UK. Stump up not listed any tickets for Hamilton.

Viagogo were listing tickets for Hamilton within an hour of going on

sale. Looking at those listings, I can prove some of them don't exist,

they are speculative. I don't know how money people have a copy of the

letter I wrote to Nigel and trading standards but I included in there,

examples of at least may be 50 tickets that I know don't exist that

they are selling on the sites. What can we do? Following the

conversation we had earlier, I'd like to see the consumer rights act

enforced. I understand the implications of them allegedly being

based in Switzerland but they do have an office with tenants may be

hundreds of staff and they trade under Viagogo with a UK website

address. I think they should be made to follow the board. Our terms and

conditions say that ticket reselling is forbidden. If you look at the way

that rather glossy but sneaky site is constructed, they've gone a long

way not to be complied with the way they've built their ticketing sites.

If you look at tickets which lists Hamilton at ?5,000, you can't I it

for that price because there are three compulsory fees. But there is

no mention of them until you get onto page six or seven of the

booking process. Suddenly, as mentioned before, there is the

appearance of this merged VAT and booking fee amount which is

something like ?1500 and underneath it, they say free shipping but on

the next page, there appears something called secure delivery

charge. No explanation what it is and it's five to 95 and you cannot

avoid it. So that ?5,000 ticket has cost to over ?6,000. I can't

identify that ticket because Viagogo don't follow the consumer rights

act. There was a clause in that act which says all seats need to be

identified by terms of seat number, row number and theatre, stalls,

dress circle, etc. When a seller on Viagogo goes to list that, those

fields are not enforced and you can bypass them. So if nobody is making

the customer list the location of the seat number, what can I do? You

said there are tickets being sold on Viagogo that you know don't exist.

Have you notified Viagogo about that? I wrote to them a few weeks

ago. The director. I explained the system we were operating for

Hamilton which I'm sure he knew about anyway and I pointed out most

of the tickets being sold on Viagogo, if sold, they would be

turned away at the door. And please remove them. And prevent all future

listings. What response have you had? None. Surveyor knowingly

selling tickets and making money from tickets where the seats may not

exist and the people want to be admitted to the show. And no

notification of that at all? The only notification is on page five or

six of their booking process, a box appears about Di Livio tickets.

About delivery of tickets. Page six of the booking process and

it says, choose your ticket method, only one option for Hamilton and it

says picked up at event. Instructions for following an

e-mail. You can't receive that e-mail until you've bought the

tickets. What I know this e-mail set is, I know this because someone who

did purchase tickets contacted a BBC programme to explain the situation.

He does know who he has bought from. He paid nearly ?7,000 for three

tickets. He has to turn up outsider venue and try to find whoever this

person is and I presume what this person will do is walk them into the

venue with their credit card. To explain, we are operating a system

which means that once the customer buys the ticket for Hamilton, they

don't receive anything through the post. No tickets for this event

exist. All they receive is a simple confirmation e-mail which says this

is not a ticket and it can't be resold and it has no monetary value

so you need to bring it along to the event. The customer needs to bring

official Government ID, photo ID, the confirmation e-mail and the card

they used to book the tickets. The photo ID let's us identify the

person standing in front of us is the cardholder and the original

person with the tickets, when we are happy with that, we will swipe the

credit card through a reader and the usher has a small ticket printer

which will print a small location which will get them into the venue.

People selling these tickets on Viagogo have nothing to sell. There

is no product. Just so we're clear, when someone who has bought tickets

for Hamilton is then given the slip to allow them to enter the theatre,

are they then able to leave the venue? Could they go through that

process and then leave with the tickets and give them to someone

else? I don't want to go into too much detail about what we are doing.

But there will be steps in place to prevent that happening. It won't be

the same every evening, we will change our operation. You observed

these tickets for sale, you've called Viagogo and they will be

aware of the terms so they know they are selling tickets that are not

supposed to be be sold. It was in the national press. And you have

warned them of what will happen, virtually that is fraught? They are

making money out of the fraudulent selling tickets. I would say so.

The more we hear about Viagogo, it strikes me these people make Stan

Flashman look like Mother Teresa! It's incredible. Surely, just to

build on what the chair said, surely what you're experiencing, customers

who want to go see one of the most hotly anticipated musicals ever,

that you are putting on, surely fraud is being committed. Have you

reported this to the authorities, the police? I'm still waiting for my

reply. Taking thousands of pounds of people, knowing they are not going

to be to get in and see the show, is effectively like selling a product

that never existed. That surely is fraud. Clearly that's a matter for

yourselves. This show is clearly going to run for a long time. What

is your message to people around the country who are desperate to see

this show? The first and they will do if they put in a search is they

will probably find a Viagogo site listed as an official site. It

appears above all of them. Maybe the search engines have some questions

to answer on this. A great opportunity here, what do you say to

genuine fans who want to come to your musical, what should they do if

you want to come see your show? I would say the same to any fan of

rock, pop or sports about, don't buy from secondary markets. In terms of

Hamilton, we have released all of our tickets yet. This is a unique

situation because Hamilton will open to the palace theatre down the road

and we are in the middle of a refurbishment. We have helped some

tickets back for those reasons. We have put in place late release

tickets of the people... You can't book 80 months in advance for the

show and there will be late opportunity to buy tickets. We are

organising two lotteries which will take place the week before the show

and on the day of the show and those tickets will be at the ?37 50 or

?25. It's not a case that the tickets will get more and more

expensive. We are holding back some lower-priced tickets for everybody.

Don't panic, there will be more tickets and also,... Can I turn to

Mr camp, Ed Sheeran Pozzo manager, one of the most popular artists in

the world at the moment and Stuart as the promoter for some of his

shows, I was fairly horrified when I heard about tickets for a charity

gig that Ed Sheeran was doing for teenage cancer, going on resale for

over ?1000. Could you tell the committee... It was a lot more than

that. Next Tuesday, playing teenage cancer trust show at Royal Albert

Hall and tickets range from ?40 to ?110. They were tickets going for

over ?5,000. How much of that money was going to the cancer show? None

of it. You clearly do other shows with Ed

show at the O2, 22nd of June, could show at the O2, 22nd of June, could

you tell the committee about your experiences with what will be a

hotly anticipated show? We announce the show three weeks ago and is sold

out instantly. We announced the O2 show quite late, just on Twitter at

three o'clock and within 20 minutes some of the secondary sites were

listing they would have tickets for that. Fair enough if that was

permitted, but what are the conditions of sale? Knowing we would

have such demands, we wrote to the main four secondary sites asking

them not to miss the show and secondly informing them as part of

our terms and conditions, resale was not allowed and if we found anyone

who purchased tickets on the secondary market, they would not be

allowed admittance to the shore. All four sides ignored our request and

listed tickets at inflated prices, knowing it is our intention to

cancel those tickets are not met their customers. Again like the

viable ghost story with Hamilton, these secondary sites are ignoring

your request. -- like the via Gogol story. They are relisting these talk

-- tickets. In the full knowledge that fans will get turned away. As

Keith has said they do not comply in Keith has said they do not comply in

the main, some comply with an others know that pressure has been applied.

Most of them do not comply with consumer law. It is impossible to

work out in some cases what the face value was. It is possible to buy

more tickets than we have set as a limit. We set the limit beforehand

and those limits are ignored by second Diddy sites. I am puzzled by

this because I have had conversations with Ticketmaster for

example who told me that if an artist or promoter does not want any

of their primary tickets to end up of their primary tickets to end up

in the secondary market, they are happy to do that. That is the

conversation we had that the evidence as to the contrary. We all

identify Viagogo as the most aggressive secondary site sitting

here, the problem with get me in and others is by being owned by a

primary ticket seller, it is very difficult to keep that black and

white. Ticketmaster do everything white. Ticketmaster do everything

they can do on occasion to blur that margin so it is impossible to tell

whether you are buying from a primary or secondary seller. There

are people in the room, myself included, who would never dream of

buying from the secondary site but we have bought from Ticketmaster. We

regularly receive e-mails about shows going on sale now,

recommending secondary sites to us so they are using their primary

database to sell secondary tickets. That is their business choice. I

have an issue with that when there is still an enormous volumes of

primary tickets still available. When you had the opportunity to buy

a ticket at ?75, to push people onto a site that the own where you will

pay ten times that. So why would Ticketmaster listen to I made in's

manager and comply with the request so that tickets do not go on the

secondary market and ignore Ed Sheeran's request. You may ask. One

day. I have asked the same question of Ticketmaster but not been given a

satisfactory answers but the reality is they can do it when it suits

them. They can do when this is them commercially. In the case of Cameron

Mackintosh and Hamilton, if he had not agreed that deal, they would not

have been given any primary tickets. In the case of iron maiden, they're

promoting company happens to promote that band. So that is absolute

collusion between primary ticket companies and the secondary market

in terms of getting access to those tickets? Yes, absolutely. In the

case of Ed Sheeran's show, the first sites to list it at 3:27pm, no other

site was able to put up that quickly. They had that prior

information with Ticketmaster who were selling primary allocations.

What action did you take, presumably got a paper trail of what was

happening to those tickets, contravening the terms and

conditions of sale, what action did you take or conversations did you

have a Ticketmaster in terms of those tickets which will have gone

on good faith to fans and the likelihood is that people will not

get into the show? We have since spoken to Ticketmaster, indeed

yesterday. They offered no explanation as to why this tickets

were listed other than that they had told us they did not have control of

the seats which I find strange when the board of directors have

commonality across the two companies and indeed they can control those

outlets when they choose to do so. It begs the question, does this make

life incredibly difficult for promoters and artists because live

nation is a great company, internationally successful as a

business, it is my understanding they not only on the largest

ticketing company but the own two of the largest secondary tickets in the

world. They managed artists, some big artists I understand and the own

and manage venues. That is a fairly tidy arrangement, is it not? Yes. I

can announce that. There is a fair reach there. It is probably unfair

of me to ask questions about them but does that make life difficult

for you as artist? Not me personally. It can be awkward for

other acts generally. Finally, do you have other examples perhaps were

promoters are directly colluding and allowing secondary ticket market

places access to tickets? I can only comment for our own company and we

do not deal with the secondary market. I wrongly interaction is to

ask them not to use their sites for our shoes. -- our only interaction.

I think there was a Channel 4 programme which covered this, and

this recent round of public conversation shows that is clearly

some collusion between primary ticket owners and the second Diddy

market. You have venues which have relationships with second Diddy

outlets. John mentioned the Scottish Rugby Union deal with Viagogo but

you also have venues in the UK. -- secondary outlets. Despite our

request for those not to be used, we are ignored. One final point on

being able to identify where a ticket was bought. Clearly if you

have terms and conditions to CDs cannot be sold and they appear on a

secondary site and bought in good faith, you want to be able to refer

to the terms and conditions. It is to the terms and conditions. It is

easy to identify a ticket because of the seat number but if I go to my

Green Day cake, two thirds of the audience are standing. -- Green Day

cake. They just had general access to the floor. Does that make things

difficult for you, does the Consumer Rights Act need to amend the

information on tickets? I don't think it is sufficient. First of

whether that is sufficient consumer whether that is sufficient consumer

protection or it is not being enforced. The answer is that is not

enough protection and it is not being enforced. The sites are

starting to comply with the Consumer Rights Act more and as Keith said,

clearly in the act it states you have to list rule, blog and seat

number. Where the listed for the 22nd of June Ed Sheeran gig? Know

they were not. So every second Diddy site selling Ed Sheeran tickets as

late as last week were breaking Consumer Rights Act yes, they were.

Someone getting as close as they cute but without complying. They do

not want to comply because we can identify the tickets, exactly as

Keith is doing at Hamilton, we will cancel the tickets so there will be

customer dissatisfaction even though we asked them not to sell them in

the first place. The latest trend is, we would tell you the blog and

of seats you will sit in. We will of seats you will sit in. We will

not actually tell you the seat which is what we have to tell you by law.

If I know that, I will cancel the tickets. So the law needs to change?

Yes, the other problem with the Consumer Rights Act, even if that

was complied with truly, when they come to sporting events, you have no

way of tracking things. We believe it should have an amendment added so

that has a unique booking reference added to it from primary sale and we

can track that back to the source. Can I add to that, in my world

because we are dealing with multiple ticket agencies, the reference

number does not mean anything to me because I do not know what company

it relates to and I would imagine there is a temptation to list seats

incorrectly, technically they have complied with consumer rights. I

think we as promoters should be able to challenge incorrectly listed

information and if secondary agents do not have this information

correctly, it should not be listed. It should not be for us to detect

this. That makes perfect sense. So a small change to the current

legislation in terms of identifiers. Standing events, which a lot of

music events are... The other problem we have, you have asked

people earlier, had you done anything about it? The fact is there

is nobody that we can go to to bring a prosecution. Trading Standards

around the country, the Consumer Rights Act has been in existence for

two light years and there has not been a single prosecution under that

legislation. There is no national Trading Standards body. It was

pleasing to seeing the Budget there is money set aside for Trading

Standards to be able to investigate and bring prosecutions on a national

level. The other aspect of this, again you were talking to rob about

this, is consumer education. You ask what would you advise a Hamilton

customer to do? The answer for us is go to the source. If you are buying

foreign Ed Sheeran tickets, go to Sheeran .com because from there you

will only be directed to primary outlets. The problem with Google,

the worst thing you can do is Google search because the Google adverts

mean that the touts who spent an enormous amount of money on adverts

are at the top of the page. Our fans guide was published yesterday and

there are ten tips on there, readily available online at how to buy a

ticket at primary value and avoid being ripped off. Interesting to

know that when you search Hamilton on Google, you get a Google ad

saying secure tickets on sale no, fast checkout stand no queues,

lowest prices, instant download, save online 24/7 customer service.

That is terrible on many levels. Some and searching will find it and

not only are Viagogo delisting for Hamilton, even though they know

people will not be admitted. They are proactively advertising, it

seems to be more shocking. From what you said so far, presumably you

would support the idea of pressure being put on the search engine sites

in the same way they have been lobbied not to give high to sites

they are known to have pirated content and giving high-ranking to

sites which are fraudulently selling tickets? Absolutely. We have

be 50p on a Google ad to be outbid be 50p on a Google ad to be outbid

on a factor of ten by a tout who is selling a ticket we have told them

they can't sell in the first place. They can do that because the margin

is so much bigger I was going to ask, about what can

be done regarding a booking reference number but is there

anything else apart from, that could be added to a bill now, is anything

else you could that legislators could do and also secondly, you said

go to Ed Sheeran's website. I don't buy lottery tickets but if I do, I

wouldn't have a clue what the official site of anybody was. So I

would probably Google it. How do the orderly person who isn't steeped in

this, which most people are not, particularly younger people who have

got a lot of money or people with kids, where it is a big treat. You

can imagine kids turning up to an event and not being allowed in, they

would be distraught. How does the average person get around this?

Every advert, e-mail, Twitter posts we do, it always says the same

thing, do not go to these secondary sites, go to the main website.

People go to Viagogo in particular and it looks like an official Ed

Sheeran outlet. Their website is all built around a sense of urgency and

panic. There are five other people looking at these tickets, the prices

going up! That is why you have the situations where the terms and

conditions are buried the bottom. People's gut reaction is to do it

quickly. I would like to see a contract between secondary... In my

world, we have a contract with every single primary agent we deal with.

It sets a standard customer services terms. All the things you would

expect, we have a relationship with his people and we know who to talk

to. Viagogo are indivisible. I'd like to see a contract, I'd like to

see the consumer rights act in force. -- Viagogo are invisible.

If they are selling a ticket for ?7,500, it'd say next to it, face

value, ?59 50. Not as they do now in a small font on page six, it is the

face value of this ticket ranges between ?20 and ?200 and that

doesn't mean anything. They need to list the full inclusive price of

tickets, the exact location, face value of the ticket and also any

risks associated with purchasing that ticket. Our terms and

conditions that if you resell a ticket, the buyers of this ticket

won't be admitted into the show. Some people must be admitted into

shows events buying these tickets or nobody would buy them. If we can

identify them, we will turn them away. What percentage are you

identifying? This is the problem because we lack of transparency in

this market. It's why the four sites are not combined with the Human

Rights Act. When we sell a primary ticket, we are obliged to comply

with the consumer rights act. You have to list all the information but

the secondary market feel they don't have to. That's where the customer

then encounters a problem and end up paying over the odds. Everything is

there on our primary sites on the first page. Presumably, the reason

sites don't comply with the consumer urges Laotian is because they feel

if they do, their business will be driven elsewhere? So they're more

interested in making money from the transaction and they are than

protecting consumers? Yes, absolutely. Your comment about the

Viagogo ad struck me because you may be aware that the Viagogo said they

couldn't come in front of the committee because they said Viagogo

does not sell tickets. Yet there is a ad and what comes up, Hamilton

tickets, on sale today, by now, secure your tickets. Last-minute

tickets. But apparently Viagogo don't sell tickets. It would be

easier for the public not to quite understand what they do. I don't

understand it. They are a platform which is their excuse. Can any of

you think of any redeeming characteristics of the secondary

market? Yes, if you are unable to go to an event, you should have a

platform where you can then dispose of that ticket but our belief is

that you should be up to dispose of it at a similar price you bought it.

So there is a reason for the secondary market with this but it

should be an exchange rather than a secondary market, it should be at

face value or just above. This is an issue we addressed when we thought

about putting Hamilton tickets on sale. We realise we put some pretty

Draconian terms and conditions in place and we asked people to commit

a substantial amount of money in advance and the situation of people

have changed several Hamilton tickets, if you can't use your

ticket, we will take it back from you. We will refund tickets up to 48

hours before the performance. We will change into a different

performance if possible subject to availability. Because we have

offered that, and there is a small advent fee, we don't seem any reason

why do people should be able to resell tickets on a secondary

platform. That's the purpose of the Genesis of the secondary market to

fulfil those kind of thing, consequences when people have got

ill and can't use a tickets or whatever. We say that if customers

didn't want to do this, they wouldn't participate. Customers are

quite happy with the service they are getting and they are arguing

that they are providing the service and if people are willing to pay

then that's up to the public. I think that depends on the customer.

If a customer sold a Hamilton tickets for a ?7,000 profit, I'm

sure they would be delighted. Everyday, easy stories of

disappointment with people have been turned away from venues. There was a

story about Catfish And The Bottlemen who I think played at

Wembley last November and they had terms and conditions where no

admission of resell tickets. People were turned away on the door. How

did Viagogo deal with this? They reflect the blame back onto the

promoters and the venues. In that case, we wrote all four platforms

again and told them we would not be admitting secondary tickets and made

it very clear in the terms and conditions, very clear, to the point

that you had to tick a box to say you had read it and accepted it

before you proceeded to the checkout. Three platforms complied

but the Swiss one did not. We had 450 customers turn up, all of whom

we unfortunately diverted back to the box office and said, sorry, your

ticket is not valid, you did tick the box, it's printed, you shouldn't

have bought the ticket elsewhere. We sold etiquette at face value and

they were admitted and we told them to claim their at Viagogo. Viagogo

blamed us. So this argument they are providing the service isn't stacking

up. It's smelling of exploitation and deception at every level. The

customer education is key in this. Explaining things that this are

available online. Unfortunately, customers will earn only by

continuing to have lessons that they are experiencing themselves or about

elsewhere. No self-respecting Catfish And The Bottlemen fan would

ever buy tickets from a secondary platform again. When Hamilton does

open and customers are turned away, it will all add up and that comes

back to your point, Julian, is that customers will then start to learn

that they have to go to the source if they are to buy a ticket. They

have to do to the owner of that ticket or the registered outlet.

It's just a word of mouth thing and does prosecution start to be brought

under the CRO, again, that will add to the customer education process.

The very fact some of these tickets have been listed against our terms

and conditions and nobody is doing anything about it, is temptation for

other people to join the club. Rather than returning to the box

office. I took on Miss Elliott's challenge to see how you would buy a

ticket Ed Sheeran by googling. Viagogo pops up right at the top.

It's interesting given what you said, Viagogo, world's 's largest

ticket marketplace, all tickets for Ed Sheeran, 100% guaranteed. That's

fraud. That's just naked fraudulent mis-selling. Because you are saying

to us at the committee today, you don't guarantee the tickets, in

fact, the absolute opposite, tickets are not guaranteed, they are

invalid. Let's call it out for what it is, Viagogo is lying. Lying to

the public. And it's doing so right at the top of the Google search

engine. Google should do something about this as well? They should not

allow people, because we know at the moment, a number of organisations

are very worried about where adverts pop up and who they pop up beside.

If you are going through Google and you are advertising, you could pop

up next to the very unsavoury Viagogo, which is selling fraudulent

tickets online to the public. The example you have with the search

engine word is agreeing not to list pirate sites, that's a good thing.

If there was agreement or legislation of a similar nature

regarding selling tickets, it would benefit customer experience and aid

transparency. Why is Google in your opinion, allowing Viagogo to

advertise in this way and sell fraudulent tickets? Because I'm

offering 50p per click and they are offering up to ?10 a click. That's

pretty clear. They basically, it's because they more cash. That's how

Google ads work all over the world. Not everybody knows how Google

works. Google is colluding in the fraudulent mis-selling of tickets. I

wouldn't say they are colluding. They are now because they have heard

you today and they know this is fraud so Google cannot say after

today's hearing they don't know what's going on. Correct. Let's hear

from Google shortly. About what they are going to do about this. I'm

interested to know, this must be horrible for you and also horrible

for the customers. I'm trying to imagine if you are excited about the

performance or event and you turn up and you paid this kind of money and

you were turned away, it must be very upsetting. The unseen element

of this, all of these online traders, is the actual human element

of it on the night of the show. There are several of us in the room

that have stood there and indeed, Catfish And The Bottlemen at Wembley

arena was one such example. We literally had a Q 100 yards long of

450 people, half of which were in tears, the other half didn't have

another credit cards are they couldn't go to the box office and

repurchase. We applied some element of humanity to it but to actually

stick to the point, we turned away a good 80% of that queue. You see

people in tears, it must be very hard not to just say to them, you've

got a ticket, just come in. But the problem is, they then go, oh, it's

OK, it worked. I'll go back to Viagogo again because I actually did

get in. They said I wouldn't but I did. Unfortunately, I think there

has to be more examples of what Catfish And The Bottlemen did, or

indeed what Hamilton dead or Harry Potter in the West End, when the

customer has to be understood that they won't get in if they buy a

secondary ticket. It's a difficult point because artists live eat and

breathe because of their fans. The people that have bought tickets in

the secondary market still fans. They just ones that have a lot more

money and perhaps not as much sense than the ones who bought it for face

value in the primary market. But they still fans.

If they turn up in tears, and obviously they have the ticket for

receipt and you are only thing that seek for all the good reasons, that

seat will be empty... It is not. Because in the case of the weekend,

they are identifying those tickets in advance and having them readily

available to sell. Somebody will sit in the seats if you have the demand.

The customer can go to the box office and repurchase that seat

themselves. Does that mean you make money twice for the same seat? No,

it does not because we refund the original purchase. I see. I am

curious, finally to finish, we are pinching ourselves when we hear

about these 5000, ?7,000 tickets for Hamilton. Everyone knows it will be

a great short but who is spending seven grand on a tickets? Who are

these people? The example that was on the BBC programme was a man who

was trying to buy tickets for his daughter, looking for four tickets,

they went on sale at 12 o'clock. Thousands of people run the website

and it crashed. They couldn't find tickets on the day they wanted to

go. His daughter contacted him and said I have found some tickets. She

used his credit card ticket. They were only three, not four and she

was horrified when this final price of ?7,500 came up when she bought

those tickets. Not as horrified as he would be when he got the bill! He

immediately contacted Viagogo to say cancel these tickets and they said

no. He went to the bank. The bank said they could do nothing. He went

into a Limbaugh process for 45 days. I do not want into -- I don't know

what happened after that. -- into a Limbaugh process. I have no contact

details for him so I do not know. Did we hear that shadow of relief

when we heard he got a refund. The nature of these events, ... Hamilton

does not begin until November of this year, so if we are dealing with

these problems in February and March, I dread to think what will

happen when we do advertising for the events. It is a great position

to BN but the only blot on the landscape for me is set -- secondary

markets and Viagogo. Chairman, this is fairly new to me. I went on the

Viagogo site on Sunday. I picked something at random, steps at

Odyssey Arena. I forget the amount I was quoted. I was then bombarded

with messages of pressure that the tickets were selling out. On a

Sunday morning, 10,400 people were looking at the same tickets I was

looking out four steps. It was probably you, Andrew. This is

tantamount to the kind of pressure selling that the door-to-door double

glazing salesmen used to use. He went into elderly people's home and

said your House will fall down if you do not sign up for these

windows. This is an appalling level of pleasure -- pressure. You do not

say this on primary sites. Yes, I had just been looking at that and I

went on edit shearing .com for the first time. There was no pressure. I

googled Ed Sheeran at Manchester and I can buy two ?77 tickets for ?990.

The website will get a process fee hundred and ?79.50 so that is good

for them but three is the vanguard guarantee. -- ?179.50. So your

website says it is all sold out but there is plenty of availability fire

all those other websites? What is the capacity at Manchester

roughly? 16,000 500. So the roughly? 16,000 500. So the

percentage of tickets to you could be 10% yet all these other websites

could be making 90%? Yes. It is not about the money we're missing out

on, it is about our relationship. Some people don't know the

difference between primary and secondary which is the hard thing

which annoys us. It is about people not being ripped off. Unfortunately,

if there is demand, that is the situation. We have a big job on our

report to find a way forward and make sure genuine fans have access?

Yes. Unfortunately we were sitting here today and in 2007. I have sat

with government departments and ministers all the way back to 2007

when Tessa Jowell was the Minister. We spent two years as a fledgling

industry, across theatre and music, after two years of meeting on the

subject, we were sent to me saying, go and self regulate. That is fine

but now we have lost control of our own industry. There are two

industries which are nothing to do with those. Primary ticketing, we

have some control but not complete control. Secondary control is

nothing to do with us as tickets or an art form and it needs regulated,

very very quickly because of all the examples you are fired. The

instruction we were given ten years ago to go and self regulate has come

back, as we predicted, and said we will lose control of their own

ticketing and some gamekeepers will turn poachers and that is exactly

what has happened. Thank you. For the record, I just looked at

being... -- Bing. I tend to agree with you. Obviously tickets are now

being prostituted. On your site, how clear do you make it that we will

not admit you? What you said about the 400 people you would not let him

at the gig, that is the message you need to get across, you will not get

in with a ticket bought from Viagogo or whoever might be. Can you make

that message is clear on your websites so that people will

understand you will enforce that? I will support you with this. I

understand it is difficult for you when people are stopped at the door.

Especially for children who want to go to the steps concert. It is just

his children who want to go. I am not going! Seriously, it is a very

difficult message for you having to police but is there anything you can

do to prevent them getting to the door, to make it clear from the

outset. For an artist, Stuart's view is very straightforward, they do not

agree with second delay to the extent that Catfish And The

Bottlemen's Management and banned... It is a fine line, you do not want

to make a hideous experience for these people, they are still fans.

We need support to be able to clamp down. I do not want to be standing

and turning people away. Turning a wee experience can be farm less

dramatic if it is done in advance. -- turning away. If we could

identify tickets purchased on the secondary market and dealt with in

advance, you would find a lot more artists willing to do that to avoid

the tears and confrontation at the front door. Identifying seats in

advance is absolutely crucial. I have just looked at the websites,

you are correct, it is a blog. It shows a map of the arena and the row

of seats. It is designed purely to prevent you jumping on them. At the

original seal point on Ed Sheeran's official site, can you not reinforce

the view? -- seal point. It was clear on every banner, do not use

these sites. I have the Twitter tap on my phone, you accept resell

tickets? Other than that, that was that, they read the official

reseller but other than that, it was very clear, do not go to any other

site. So you have an app for that? Yes. And we are treading tickets on

that site. So genuine people, they are placing tickets there and other

customers are buying at face value. Keith, you said at Hamilton new

offer in exchange? They went on sale for weeks ago? In January. Have you

had many exchanged already? We have had a few. I think this should be

static because we have sold out but I do say some movement. It seems to

be people who bought tickets and did be people who bought tickets and did

not rate -- realise that Prentice bought tickets so they have too

many. Or some people who realised it would not be easy to resell tickets

so they have offered them back for exchanges. If they are genuine, that

is fine. Thank you. Why don't we just say, you are putting your

tickets up for sale because you cannot go so it is face value plus

10% and that is it, that would sell -- solve all their problems. That is

it. So it stops profiteering. Websites can provide a service and

get a little commission. These sites will not be happy making a little

commission. The only exist because they are making such a huge margins.

As Rob said earlier, the regulation in France, tickets and France can

ticket gives that permission so we ticket gives that permission so we

would be more than happy to give permission for the tickets to be

resold at a maximum of 10% which is resold at a maximum of 10% which is

what we are doing with this site we discussed. You are paying

effectively what you would have paid if you bought on the primary market

place if you take into account booking fees exert. If that is an

amount we have talked about, sorry I went to the chamber quickly I may

have missed that. Was the 10% level have missed that. Was the 10% level

talked about? When we were previously meeting with various

government representations, we suggested as an industry that we

fell 10% with an acceptable level so if there was legislation that

prevented resell at over 10% we would be very happy with that. All

right, thank you. A quick question. I suspect the rest of the secondary

market would not be happy with that level of restriction in legislation

but took it seems to be a company which is doing the right thing in

offering tickets at face value. -- Twicket. It strikes me if I was as

Stan Flashman character, I would go straight -- Twicket. To then I would

go to be a go go and sell them. Are go to be a go go and sell them. Are

you aware of this? We are not aware of this. If someone does do that and

the ticket arrives on the second market, we will still be able to

identify that ticket and trailer back but we cannot.

We've heard evidence today that all four major secondary ticket resale

companies are flouting the law, despite reassurances in here that

they are not flouting existing consumer rights law. That's not new

information. That was one of Professor Waterson's recommendations

and it's in his report and I think all four are being investigated on

that basis. There is irrefutable evidence they have been breaking the

law and have been for months. The message is fairly clear I think the

general music fans. Thank you for joining us, this

afternoon, for the final panel on our session today on abuse of

ticketing market. You represent victims of tickets bought from

Viagogo. We've heard a lot of damning evidence today about the way

the site performs, the weight it's warned about tickets sold on it.

What do you think we should be looking at now in terms of further

strengthening the consumer protection legislation? Should be a

question of being rigorously and forced for sellers who don't comply?

I think it's definitely enforcement. I'm here to represent 420 by people

who are personally contacted me in the last six weeks, all of whom have

had negative experiences on the website but also subsequently to

their perches, contacting Viagogo has been a frustrating experience

for most of them. What it seems to us is that as well as enforcement,

we need to see some extra protection put in place for the consumer and I

think they're never has before been a connected consumer voice as we've

got currently. All of us speak with the same voice which is very strong.

One of the things that has occurred to us, is that, and certainly from a

experience buying tickets, the costs were simply not displayed clearly.

People were unaware of how much they were actually spending. It was just

a case of expensive or inflated prices, but the fact they didn't

know that other costs were going to be charged to them. I think there

should be a cooling off period and people should be allowed,

particularly under this precious selling -- pressure selling

situation, to have the protection of the law which states that if you are

in a situation, you have a right to cancel your purchase within a

certain time period. What we are seeing is that for every customer

who has had a negative experience with Viagogo, they have all asked

for refunds, and they have all been told they simply cannot have one.

Initially, they are told they can't have everything, it's impossible to

cancel their perches but what they can do is relist. If those people

then relist their tickets, what they are not told is that they will then

incur more fees, more selling fees and they will not see their money

back again until after the event. For some customers, that can be up

to a year in advance. If you imagine that this process could actually

happen, many times, because what happens in the circumstances, is if

a customer is charged an excessive amount of money and they panic and

they do what Viagogo tells them to do and relist, that person will just

have to keep recurring. When that ticket is presented at the event,

that person may not get in. If that person doesn't get in at the end,

none of those people through the whole process will be refunded. The

only company that has made any money on it is Viagogo. You said the

gentleman who bought the Hamilton tickets was refunded. We now have

within our group, 150 members within the last six weeks, we have received

or reclaimed refunds of over ?41,000. Each refund have not come

easily, they've been fought for and his was one of them. He's a member

our group. We are seeing a pattern of refunds, they generally come from

people who make a lot of noise, people who take to social media and

contact the media and in fact, before the money-saving expert

article and the guardian article, that is when we have seen a flurry

of refunds. That seems very unfair as well because there are a lot of

people who don't feel they are able to do that or feel strong enough and

you have to be incredibly strong to be to do this. Like any other form

of abuse, it relies on people being silenced and it relies on people

being isolated. Could you explain, freighter buckle buyer, what the

complaints process is, because a general criticism with web platforms

is often that the process of complaint or flagging concerns is

not always very clear. Everybody in our group who has had this very

distressing experience, will try to contact Viagogo. If you can

understand they are very quick to take money, but not quick to answer

concerns. Customers may try to contact them by mail, e-mail,

telephone, Twitter, direct message and by tweeting. Sometimes they

don't get any response at all. When they do, it's often automated so not

actually a response to their concern. They are told repeatedly

that they are not due for a refund. All they are not able to get one.

Because of our group and because so many of us have been this process,

we understand how it works in the sense that it's only those people

who keep on keeping on, continuously, who actually are

likely to see their money back. When do you get to talk to a human being?

I seem to be in the unique situation that Viagogo have first of all

contacted me personally and secondly, they do respond relatively

quickly when I direct methods. Individuals within our group will

write to Viagogo or try to contact them or phone them, and I will take

all of those letters and I will send them as a direct message as well.

They often reply sometimes within a couple of minutes to my direct

messaging. I would also like to say, I heard at the beginning from you

all how disappointed you are that Viagogo is not here. I'd say on

behalf of their customers, how disappointed we feel because they

have shown contempt I think for their customers and a certain lack

of care and respect and it would have been nice to have faced us

today. Thank you for coming. Could you just explain your particular

circumstance and the experience you had, buying I believe Ed Sheeran

tickets. He's getting a lot of publicity today!

Could you just walk you through your experience for the benefit of the

committee? And Viagogo will be watching. I have four children,

three of them are massive Ed Sheeran fans. This year, we have a

combination of very big birthdays. So as their mother, I thought it

would be an amazing experience for us to have this and go to Ed Sheeran

together. My son is about to turn 16 and it's his 16th birthday on the

12th of April, the date Ed Sheeran is playing in Dublin. I thought as a

surprise, I would try to get tickets. The last time I bought

tickets was ten years ago to Rod Stewart and I'm not familiar with

the secondary market, or I wasn't until six weeks ago. I researched, I

did all the things I think as a consumer, we are advised to do. I

went on to Ed Sheeran's own website and a new, to go to an official

site, I looked at all the official sites and I went to Ticketmaster but

I was looking at the 31st of January and this was the presale. In my

mind, I thought, none of these tickets would be resold tickets

because they haven't actually been released yet, they are presale. I

went on to both Ed Sheeran's site and Ticketmaster and had no luck.

Ticketmaster said error and went completely down. I went back onto

Google and found Viagogo at the top of Google listings which said, we

have tickets today, official site and I went with that. It was a very

panic situation again because I had all of those manipulations and sales

coming at me so I was, next one in the queue but there were thousands

of people looking, it was all sold, sold, sold and finally, last four

tickets and I was so excited I would be getting. I knew from my research

that the face value of the ticket was likely to be ?50 and ?75. I saw

four tickets, ?260 and a quick mental calculation and I pushed the

buying button. I didn't know to any of that process that the price was

per ticket and they would be fees on top of that. So what it ended up

being was ?1421. The day after, my rent was due so I'd already been

onto my bank account to see how much money I had and I knew I didn't have

that much in my account. My own experience is quite unique in the

sense that when I pushed by, the verification by these window opened

on the website, I was fast and putting in my information quickly.

For whatever reason, it wouldn't let me put in my birth date so that

process didn't complete. The first e-mail I got from Viagogo was to say

the transaction had failed. I'd gone through a halt lots of emotions to

be from excited to panicking and then relief that my transaction had

failed. I thought the bank or decline the payment knowing I didn't

have that money in my bank account. I then got a confirmation message to

say, it had gone through. Since then, the bank has launched a

security investigation and this is one of my concerns as a consumer,

what are they doing with the data? Because it seems from the... Sorry

to interrupt, can I go back a step? You thought your transaction had

been cancelled because you didn't have the money. It said it had

failed? Then you got an e-mail saying you'd got tickets? In the

first e-mail, it said it had failed and unless I did one of five

different things which was use another card or present a different

way of paying, I would lose the tickets. So I was relieved at that

point that actually the transaction would cancel and I would be charged.

What the bank had told me think I've provided this as evidence to you,

it's true, my first transaction did fail and the bank had registered it

on their side as an online transaction, e-commerce transaction.

Four minutes later, a second transaction was presented and it was

presented at the bank in a completely different way. I didn't

authorise a second payment but somebody else has used my details to

make that transaction happen. So I have great concerns that actually my

data was unprotected and I think this is as a consumer, making an

online purchase, something that needs to be investigated. It sounds

serious. Are you saying that potentially Viagogo transacted the

second payment without your authorisation? I'm saying it was

definitely somebody else and it wasn't me. Who did the payment go

to? Viagogo. The bank also said to me when I first contacted them that

it was registered as a completely different way of paying on their

side and look to them as if I had rung them and used my details over

the phone. And you definitely didn't do that? I definitely did not.

Certainly questions for Viagogo to answer if they'd been here but also

for your bank perhaps. Throughout this whole process, all of us are

learning very quickly. One of the things happening as people are going

to their banks to see if there is any way the bank can have a charge

back because the tickets are not as they were misleading, in lots of

cases. The banks have not been very helpful in this process either. They

say no fraud has been committed because people have authorised the

tickets to be bought but no one within our group has ever authorised

for the amount of money to go because they simply were not aware

of the costs. The costs were not clearly displayed and when Viagogo

rang me to offer me a refund, and I was very appreciative of their phone

call, it came a day before money saving expert publish their article,

I was very appreciative of the stone call. They said they wished to be

clear and transparent and they can only imagine stressed it's caused.

They said they had researched and were aware there had been an error

on this system which had caused these prices not to be displayed.