Viagogo turned into Via-no-no when it failed to replace U2 fan's ticket

Katalin Tarjan travelled from Budapest to London to see U2, but Viagogo told her that their seller had let them down

A U2 fan in Hungary feared she wouldn’t be a face in the London crowd when her tickets didn’t come (Rex Features)

Online ticket agencies were back in the news this week after Which? accused them of cheating consumers by flouting the Consumer Rights Act. It spent eight weeks monitoring four of the biggest secondary ticketing websites and found evidence that consumers are missing out.

It said tickets appeared on resale sites before they were even officially released and accused the online sites of ignoring resale restrictions. Its research also revealed tickets appearing simultaneously on primary and resale sites and some suspicious ticket release patterns.

Regular readers will know how much trouble some people have had when buying tickets through Viagogo, one of the biggest ticket resale sites. I've reported readers' problems actually getting tickets they'd shelled out for on the site for concerts by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and One Direction.

This week it was the turn of fans of U2 and DJ outfits Seth Troxler and Apollonia to contact me with tales of woe. The site has repeatedly told me in the past that if a seller lets a buyer down for an event, Viagogo would step in with replacement tickets, as it did when I contacted them about problems for fans of the pop acts mentioned above.

Yet it failed to do so for a U2 fan who had travelled halfway across Europe with two friends to see one of her favourite bands. Katalin Tarjan travelled from Budapest in Hungary to London to see U2 this month, having bought three tickets through Viagogo back in May. She was told that the tickets would be with her at least three days before the event.

She contacted the site several times before the concert and was repeatedly told that the tickets would be with her in time. "On Saturday, three days before the event, I emailed stating that I still don't have the tickets and can pick them up myself if needed," she says. The response she got was totally unexpected.

"On Saturday afternoon they said their seller had let them down and they were not able to find replacement tickets, so would refund me." Having arranged and booked a three-day getaway from Budapest to London for three people, the main point of which was to see the U2 concert, she was dumbfounded.

"I asked them to find me tickets but they said they couldn't and advised me to browse their website." There were tickets available – but at twice the price. Not wanting more problems she got tickets from another site.

But she contacted me afterwards with her tale, which I immediately took to the firm. As in the past it leapt into action when I got in touch. "This was handled incorrectly by our customer service team," a spokesman told me. "The seller missed the delivery deadline and we were unable to locate him by phone. Our policy is then to obtain replacement tickets from our platform and charge the seller for letting the buyer down. We had replacement tickets, so that's what should have happened."

The company then offered to compensate Katalin the full cost of the tickets she had to buy elsewhere, on top of the refund she had be given for the tickets that hadn't turned up. She was pleased with the outcome but said: "I wonder how many buyers are out there to whom the same thing happened?"

Jack Pritchard's problem was different. He bought two tickets through Viagogo to see Seth Troxler and Apollonia in Amsterdam but then decided he couldn't really afford it and attempted to resell the tickets through the site. That's when his problems started.

A buyer was found but the sale fell through. When he contacted the site to find out why, he was in for a shock. "I was told the two tickets I had bought through Viagogo were fake and I would not get my money back."

It took several phone calls and my intervention before the site saw sense and refunded Jack his money – but, as he says: "I want to warn others of the way they behave. I was promised calls back four times and never received one until I took to social media and contacted The Independent."

Viagogo must up its game. Mistakes happen, but if it can't sort them out to customers' satisfaction, it will struggle to retain a decent reputation. The site is rapidly becoming one of our readers' least favourite companies to deal with.

s.read@independent.co.uk

twitter: @simonnread