Last Saturday I was another victim of a scam through the Viagogo ticket resale platform.
And I say one more victim, probably thousands or tens of thousands around the world, because after doing some research I have even come across entire forums on travel pages, or on Facebook, dedicated to the frauds that are allowed in that Web page.
But what is Viagogo? According to the website it is the “largest secondary platform for live events worldwide.” In other words, it is a ticket resale page, and that is precisely what the site hides behind to protect itself from fraud that is committed on it.
In Viagogo they indicate that they are not the holders of the tickets for the events, therefore they do not set their prices and these may be higher or lower than their original value. Obviously, you will never find tickets to an event below its original price.
But even in the scenario that a person is willing to pay two or four times the price of a ticket to see their favorite artist, the fraud that Viagogo allows is consummated when access to the event becomes a lottery.
According to my unfortunate experience, as well as many others that are exposed in the aforementioned forums, in most cases the tickets purchased at exorbitant prices are duplicate or false tickets, so once you arrive at the event you will not be able to you can enter.
I did this research late, and late I read about the alert issued by the Federal Consumer Attorney’s Office (Profeco) in its January issue of this year of the Consumer Magazine in which it alerts about the purchase of tickets for events through resale.
Surely many will come to mind the recent fraud with Bad Bunny concert tickets in Mexico City. And by putting both cases together I can only conclude that we are in a time when buying tickets for our favorite events has become a real jungle.
Years ago that jungle was represented in the surroundings of the stadium, arena or theater where the desired artist performed. You were approached by scalpers, and if it was the option you had chosen to go to the concert, you knew the risk you were running.
Today, in the digital age, the jungle is on a web page, which is impossible to report (just as you couldn’t with the reseller), and you don’t even see his face (the reseller, yes). It’s a time when our senses must be sharpened in front of a screen to get out of it, or at least not get ripped off, in the new jungle of event tickets.
For now, I’ll still be looking forward to seeing Vince Neil and his Mötley Crüe, my weekend plan thwarted by the Viagogo scammers.