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Since five days have passed with no steps toward any kind of resolution, I have decided that it is okay to bash viagogo publicly for what happened to us on Friday night.
A few months ago, my husband expressed interest in seeing the US Mens Team friendly match in Amsterdam this past weekend. Someone recommended Viagogo for ticket purchases, so I bought three tickets on the site in April. Last Wednesday afternoon, we drove seven hours to Amsterdam and made a weekend of it.
On Friday, we were excited. We met up with friends who were also in town for the game, then headed to the stadium, where we all split up to head into our assigned entry points.
First, there was me. I scanned my ticket and the gate would not open. I thought perhaps the paper was wet from trekking around the whole stadium in light rain, but it was not the paper–it was the tickets. They’d already been scanned. Someone was already in the seats. The gate attendant marked the top of my paper with a “3” (I don’t know what it means, but the other attendant marked my husband’s with the same “3”). I ran to the side of the barred entry point and began yelling for Paul, thinking he was inside with Sequoia and would not realize that I was not getting in. Soon, however, I saw Paul with Sequoia in tow, heading toward me in search of the customer service booth toward which he’d been directed. We all headed over there, Sequoia shivering as we stood in the rain. We were missing the first half of the game as we stood in line. A young man was having the same problem with the tickets he’d bought on viagogo.
The stadium customer service representative took our tickets, looked the numbers up in the computer, and confirmed that someone else had scanned the tickets earlier. He was completely unsurprised. He said that viagogo is not a partner of theirs and so they could not do anything about the situation, but this happens with viagogo–someone gets on and sells the same tickets to multiple buyers. I overheard a customer service rep telling someone at another window, “It’s a scam.”
We were left with little to do but to buy new tickets. So. We were out over $200 for the (overpriced) original, fraudulent set of tickets, and now would have to pay over $150 for tickets to this game we were already missing.
We learned throughout this experience, that this exact situation happened to friends. They thought that it was a fluke. They said that viagogo had seemed genuinely surprised and apologetic. Viagogo refunded the tickets and gave our friends a credit. (To be clear, I want a refund, but I do not seek a credit–I will never use viagogo again, not only because of the issue but their handling of it thus far–read on.) The fact that it has happened to someone we know leads me to believe this is no fluke.
What’s my issue with how they have handled the situation?
On Friday night (5 days ago), I submitted an email form regarding the issue. The form said that if the issue was regarding an event within 48 hours, they would respond in 24 hours. There has been no response after five days.
On Saturday (4 days ago), I opened a dispute in the paypal dispute center. The dispute resolution center expects the situation to be handled between buyer and seller, and if after so many days it has not been resolved, you then elevate the dispute to paypal to handle. Currently my claim is in the stage of buyer and seller directly communicating. Unfortunately, viagogo has not bothered to communicate in that forum, either. Not once.
On Monday morning (2 days ago), first thing, I called the viagogo customer service telephone number. The representative seemed surprised that this would happen and assured me that she would contact the proper customer care department, which would get back to me via phone or email. In 2 days, diddly squat. Not a peep.
I have given viagogo three methods by which to settle this, and have given ample time before blogging negatively about it. Now all I can say is, DO NOT BUY FROM VIAGOGO. If you get scammed, the venue will not be able to assist you, and they won’t be surprised that it happened.
The good news? The US came from behind to win!
UPDATE: Viagogo contacted me and they are processing a refund. She said that she’d be happy to give us a credit as well as the refund, but I said no thanks, because seriously, I have no faith in the company. In fact, my husband is on his way to the USMNT game tonight in Germany, with tickets his colleagues purchased off of viagogo. I sure hope they work; I’m sitting by the phone waiting for the call telling me that he’s watching the game from a bar. But the end of this saga has come. Finally.